Russia's Medvedev offers foreign policy continuity

By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Next week a lawyer with little foreign policy experience will become Russian president and lead a country with a nuclear arsenal, a UN veto and volatile relations with its neighbors and an energy-dependent West.

The consensus among diplomats and analysts is that Dmitry Medvedev, who will be sworn in on May 7, will stick broadly to the assertive policies of his predecessor Vladimir Putin that have proved popular at home and alarmed the West.

Despite his years working closely with Putin, little is known about the real Medvedev when it comes to international relations. He projects a pro-Western style but analysts note he has yet to justify that image in practice.

Behind closed doors, Medvedev, 42, showed a grasp of what lies ahead, said Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the few foreign leaders to have met Medvedev at length since he became president-elect.

"He is intelligent, has an excellent grip on the issues and has a good sense of humor," Juncker, in written comments supplied to Reuters, said of his Kremlin meeting last month.

Since 2000, Putin has delivered anti-Western rhetoric and demanded respect for Moscow, policies that are wildly popular with a public seeking a halt in the slide of the country's authority after the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991.

With Putin due to become prime minister, there are many skeptics who wonder if Medvedev will make his own mark, or mimic his master's voice.

"I'm pessimistic. I don't like that the Russian media and the Kremlin are trying to portray Medvedev as a modern western guy, because I don't see that yet," Nikolai Zlobin of the World Security Institute in Washington told Reuters.