RUSSIA:Fresh hints have emerged about the future role for Vladimir Putin within Russian politics after he steps down from presidential office in a year's time.
The leader of the United Russia party, the country's largest political organisation, suggested on Russian radio that Mr Putin may become the party's new leader. At the moment, it controls more than 60 per cent of all seats in the Russian parliament, the Duma.
Boris Gryzlov, the party's leader and speaker of the Duma, suggested Mr Putin might take over, though he conceded that this hadn't been discussed directly with the president yet.
Mr Putin's future role in politics has become one of the main topics of political gossip in Russia, with few believing he will retire from public life while his popularity remains so high, currently running at about 80 per cent.
Despite some suggestions that the constitution could be amended to allow him to run for a third term, this seems unlikely.
Mr Putin has said he hopes to play a role in public life in Russia, but has not spelled out what this might be. There have been suggestions he may become chairman of energy giant Gazprom, or he may become prime minister to a compliant one-term president who he then replaces again.
The campaign to succeed him will get under way later this year.
Kremlin-backed candidates unofficially in the field already include two deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov and Dimity Medvedev. Mr Putin has said he will not anoint a successor, though he will declare which candidate, or candidates, he supports once campaigning begins.
One likely opposition candidate, Mikhail Kasyanov, has been told this week he faces investigation for embezzlement linked to the sale of fighter aircraft to India seven years ago. The former prime minister was fired by Mr Putin in 2004.
Separately, Mr Putin's envoy to Europe, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, dismissed fears of a new cold war. The Russian president's recent speech criticising US foreign policies was intended to give some western countries a "cold shower", not a cold war, he said.