MOSCOW - Reuters


Incoming Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced his cabinet line-up yesterday re-appointing most aaa ministers and taking powerful figures from his previous Kremlin team with him to his new post.

President Dmitry Medvedev who succeeded Putin as president last Wednesday approved the names quickly at a formal meeting. Putin re-appointed Alexei Kudrin seen by markets as a guarantor of Russia's free-market policies as Finance Minister. Sergei Lavrov the public face of Moscow's assertive foreign policy stayed as Foreign Minister. Former prime minister and ex-collective farm boss Viktor Zubkov stayed in the cabinet as one of two first deputy prime ministers. The other is Igor Shuvalov who was Putin's top economic policy aide at the Kremlin.

Among the few major changes were the removal of Telecom's Minister Leonid Reiman the splitting of the Industries and Energy Ministry into two separate entities and the creation of a new ministry for sport and tourism and another for ecology.