The decision of President Putin to fire the Cabinet of Ministers aroused a a lot of publications both in Russian and foreign mass media.

The New York Times calls the decision of the Russian President to dismiss the government quite unexpected. The newspaper also names several possible candidates to became Prime Minister: Minister of Defense Sergyey Ivanov, Minister of Finance Alexey Kudrin and first deputy of the Kremlin administration Dmitry Kozak. In the NYT opinion, Putin’s not mentioning the name of successor to Mr. Kasyanov adds political dramatic effect to elections. The newspaper notes, however, that the retirement of the head of the government can hardly result in immediate and drastic changes in the Russian policy, which is strictly regulated by the Kremlin.

The American Christian Science Monitor goes back to the discrepancies between V. Putin and M. Kasyanov. The newspaper reminds that during the last years of his presidency B. Eltsin changed prime-ministers several times and the Russian political establishment concluded that the Kremlin leader had lost his power. Probably because of that experience of his predecessor V. Putin didn’t hurry with firing M. Kasyanov in spite of the great disagreement between them, points out the newspaper.

The German Berliner Zeitung believes, that Putin’s dismissal of the government is nothing more than demonstration of power before the coming elections. As the newspaper notes, some people in the West have only now learnt that there is a prime minister in Russia - so predominating Putin’s position is. The fact that even the parliament fraction of pro-presidential party was not informed of the supposed dismissal shows what an “autocratic style” Vladimir Putin has adopted, say analysts from the newspaper.

The British newspaper Guardian, however, believes, that dismissal of M. Kasyanov was caused not so much by the coming elections, but by the so-called “YUKOS affair”. The Guardian analysts think that the ex-premier’s criticizing the investigation against M. Khodorkovsky just irritated V. Putin and his supporters. The article stresses that M. Kasyanov was of the opinion that the situation with the Russian company makes a dangerous precedent for the restoring Russian economy.

Wall Street Journal believes that in any other country the dismissal of the government just before the elections would be considered to be a super self-confidence. According to Wall Street Journal, the real reason for firing the government is that “prime-minister Kasyanov was the most independent voice in the President Administration”. V. Putin was weakening Kasyanov’s position methodically – he led a company against oligarchs and removed members of “Eltsin’s family” from the administration. One of them, Alexander Voloshin, was fired in October last year.

WSJ believes that the latest events will strengthen the position of those politicians who are pursuing reforms – Viktor Khristenko, Alexey Kudrin and ministers supporting V. Putin (among them the newspaper mentions minister of Defense S. Ivanov). "It would be fine, - they write,  - if these events meant speeding up the reforms.  At least, many analysts hope it would be so. However, changing the government and even speeding up the reforms won’t be enough for ambitious aim of doubling GDP. According to the WSJ one of the reasons for the reforms being slowed down is the way the President’s assistant use their excessive power.