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Putin is expected to be confirmed by the Duma this week, but few give him a prayer of becoming Russia's next President. His anointment is less a strategic move in a long-range plan than a sudden turn taken by an enfeebled President preoccupied with survival. "The Kremlin's not playing chess," says Alexander Oslon, Russia's leading pollster. "They're playing checkers--they're living one day at a time." With the end of Yeltsin's second term 10 months away, the Family is beset by fear of humiliation, if not prosecution. ("The Ceausescu scenario," a Kremlin staff member calls it, recalling the collapse of Romania's dictatorship in 1989.) Ironically, the gravest threat may be neither Luzhkov nor the Chechen rebels but a corps of Swiss prosecutors that has been probing allegations of financial malfeasance in the Kremlin, centering on lucrative contracts awarded a Swiss construction firm. Yeltsin is eager to ensure that whoever takes over the Kremlin next year won't be coming after him or his family. And while Putin may not survive in office long enough to become his successor, Yeltsin is counting on him to have the political muscle to shepherd the Kremlin's favorites into the Duma in December.
Naturally, the sudden ascent of a Federal Security Service boss has raised the specter of unconstitutional moves. Inside Russia, Putin is known as an "ice-head" or tough hardened guy--not the ideal pedigree for shoring up the nation's rickety democratic system. But while Putin and Yeltsin could declare a state of emergency, disband the Duma or cancel elections, Kremlin aides insist that Yeltsin appreciates the importance of a peaceful transfer of power.
August is the cruelest month in Russian politics, a month that recalls low points like the 1991 coup attempt and last year's economic collapse. But this August, Yeltsin's final one in the Kremlin, has been particularly unkind. The Swiss are still probing, while Islamic separatists drag Russia yet again into the Caucasus quagmire and regional chieftains from St. Petersburg to Tatarstan hunger for a bigger slice of the federal powers. Yeltsin's final year was supposed to be dedicated to dignified business: handing over the Kremlin to an heir sworn to reforming Russia. He may yet succeed in that improbable mission. But last week even allies were starting to believe that Yeltsin, cut off from the world outside and growing increasingly fearful for his own future, is holding his whole country hostage. He has named an heir, but he needs a savior.