Russia Pins Hopes on Putin on Inauguration Day

Putin to be Sworn in

Vladimir Putin's meteoric rise to power will be crowned on Sunday when he is inaugurated as president, while Russia remains mired in the Chechnya conflict and looks to him to formulate his wider plans for the future.

Just eight months after emerging from the obscurity of leading Russia's FSB domestic security service, Putin was to swear an oath of office in the majestic surroundings of the Grand Kremlin Palace and then watch a military parade.

But questions remained over how the 47-year-old, a former KGB spy, intended to fulfil his promises of rebuilding his poor but impoverished nuclear-armed country.

Putin, who swept the board in a March 26 election, is to watch a military parade after his inauguration and receive a 30-gun presidential salute.

Former President Boris Yeltsin, who handed over power to Putin four months ago, will play a key role in the inauguration.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has also been invited in a clear desire to stress continuity of power in Russia, which has seen two coup attempts in the past 10 years.

Putin received his presidential identity card from the country's election chief on Saturday after returning from nearly a week in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. He said he would give a general idea of his plans in a speech after his inauguration.

"I can say that a worthy life, in my view, will be achieved if we further develop the democratic institutions which we have already set up," he said in televised comments.

Putin was little known when Yeltsin named him prime minister in August 1999 but his popularity soared amid firm support for the war against rebels in Chechnya.

Yeltsin named Putin acting president on New Year's Eve, a position which was confirmed by his successor's election win.

Putin has often talked of rebuilding Russia's might, and some critics fear his past as an agent of the KGB Soviet security police means he will be an authoritarian leader.

Critics have also pointed to his record on Chechnya, where he has wholeheartedly backed an offensive which Moscow says is aimed at terrorists but which has been criticised for an excessive use of force and rights abuses.

Putin has indicated that he favours keeping Russia on a market-oriented path and has appointed an outspoken liberal, Andrei Illarionov, as his economic adviser.

The shape of his government will show how he hopes to sustain a recovery triggered by strong world market prices for Russia's main exports and by a 1998 devaluation.

First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a Western-oriented technocrat, is expected to be prime minister. Yeltsin's former premier Viktor Chernomyrdin said after meeting Putin in Sochi that a new government head may be named on Sunday.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexiy II urged Putin in a statement to heal social and economic ills without haste and taking into account the age-old traditions of the country.

"In the past few years we have too often believed that fast decisions were the right decisions," he said. "We need to make our plans for decades ahead and also look back into past ages."

Some of Putin's pro-Western critics say the former spy, handpicked by Yeltsin, is a puppet in the hands of Yeltsin's entourage and no changes should be expected. "Power in the Kremlin will remain in the same hands," said the daily Sevodnya.