Putin makes Moscow police chief interior minister

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted Moscow's police chief to the post of interior minister on Monday, endorsing his work in keeping protests in check, and signaling to the opposition that he will brook no dissent in his six-year term.

Bringing Vladimir Kolokoltsev, 51, into government also shows that, although Putin has made light of the biggest protests of his 12-year rule, he is concerned by the threat they pose and wants a trusted ally to help see off the challenge.

"He's known as the man who kept order during the protests, and that is what's important for the Kremlin," Andrei Soldatov, an author and expert on Russia's security forces, said of Kolokoltsev.

"They are afraid these kinds of protests could be a threat to stability all over Russia," he said of Putin's team.

Angry about alleged fraud in a December parliamentary election won by Putin's party, and dismayed by his decision to rule for at least six more years, tens of thousands of people turned out at some of the protests in Moscow during the winter.

Police largely left those crowds alone, and the size of protests decreased after Putin's election as president on March 4. But this month they took a harder line, detaining more than 1,000 people, most of whom were later released.

Riot police beat demonstrators at a rally on May 6, cleared streets near Putin's route to his inauguration ceremony the next day and have chased protesters around the city since then to quash their efforts to create a permanent encampment.

Boris Nemtsov, a blunt opposition leader and former deputy premier, said Kolokoltsev's promotion was his reward.

"This is a man who breaks up peaceful meetings with the help of cudgels," Nemtsov told Reuters. "This all fits into the logic of modern Putinism. The authorities fear the people and rely only on bayonets and batons."

Others saw the appointment in less stark terms but said there was little chance of reforms in the police force - which opinion surveys show is seen by many Russians as more of potential threat than a protector - under Kolokoltsev.

Like others appointed to the government on Monday, his mandate appears to be to maintain stability, not pursue change.

In terse remarks to the new government at a Kremlin meeting, Putin said the appointees face a tough task in developing Russia at a time of global economic uncertainty.

For Putin, economic troubles translate into worries that opposition to his rule could grow stronger, according to Soldatov.

"Kolokoltsev is a product of the extra attention that was paid to civil order after the financial crisis of 2008, when the authorities became truly worried at the thought of civil unrest in the country," Soldatov said.

SAVVY

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev's dismissal had been widely expected after police violence, corruption and abuse scandals underscored the need for police reform and the shortcomings of Dmitry Medvedev's efforts in that area as president.

Kolokoltsev, who joined the Soviet Interior Ministry in 1982 and was once a beat cop commander, was promoted to Moscow's top police post after his predecessor was fired when a drunken district chief killed two people and wounded seven in a supermarket shooting rampage.

Ilya Ponomaryov, a lawmaker with the left-leaning Just Russia party and a protest organizer, said Kolokoltsev was "a bit more lively than Nurgaliyev, who is very soldier-like," but dismissed the appointment as a cosmetic change.

"We saw while he was head of the Moscow police that he will act in exactly the same way, but it will be done with a little bit more of a smile and maybe a little bit more dialogue," Ponomaryov told Reuters.

Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor and expert on Russian security, said Kolokoltsev was a "savvy bureaucratic operator" but had not bought into the "wider reform agenda."

"I suspect that under him, ?police reform' will mean better efficiency and centralization rather than greater transparency and conformity to the laws," he wrote in a blog.

Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov said Kolokoltsev may have impressed Putin as a "successful crisis manager".

Kolokoltsev raised eyebrows by negotiating with nationalists on a square outside the Kremlin in December 2010, when racial violence seemed to be threatening to snowball in Moscow.

Chikov said he had built better relations with citizens than some other police officials who spoke harshly of protesters, but analysts said he would follow whatever orders he were given.

"Whether or not violence has been avoided throughout most of the protests is irrelevant, what matters here is only the method the Kremlin wants to employ," said Soldatov. "If he were asked to use tougher methods, he would employ them."

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel, Thomas Grove, Darya Korsunskaya and Maria Tsvetkova, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Robin Pomeroy)

conversion disorder the chronicle spinal stenosis the forgotten man mike jones just friends chronicle