Kremlin line-up to shed light on Russian riddle

By Guy Faulconbridge - Analysis

MOSCOW (Reuters) - When limousines sweep through the Kremlin gates after Wednesday's presidential handover, the identity of their occupants taking up key posts may help answer a question troubling investors and foreign capitals alike.

Who will really be running Russia, with its booming $ 1.3 trillion economy and the world's second-biggest nuclear arsenal?

Dmitry Medvedev will take the presidential oath; but Vladimir Putin, his power anchored in networks and factions that shape the Russian state, will be a formidable prime minister. Some observers say Putin, not his protege, will hold sway.

"The weight of Medvedev's people and their positions in the presidential administration will indicate whether Putin intends to fully remain in control of the situation," said Pavel Salin, an analyst from Russia's Centre for Current Politics.

The rivalry is not just over power but policy too.

Kremlin-watchers say if Putin's people -- many of them hawks with security service backgrounds -- remain dominant, the state will keep its hefty role in the economy and Moscow will continue to have strained relations with the West.

But some predict that if Medvedev succeeds in installing his loyalists -- most of them with law or business backgrounds -- in key posts, there is a chance he will free up the economy and take a more conciliatory approach to foreign policy.

There is feverish speculation in Moscow's political salons about who will take the key posts inside the government and the presidential administration, but hard information is scarce.