Billboards around the city show Mayor Yury Luzhkov urging Moscow residents to vote on March 2. But what they will be voting for is not a continuation of President Vladimir Putin's course but of Luzhkov's course.

Zamoskvoretsky District Court sentenced former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov to 5 1/2 years in prison Wednesday, one day after it found him guilty of abuse of office and defrauding Russia and the United States out of millions of dollars.

Vladimir Potanin's Interros, a key shareholder in Norilsk Nickel, said Wednesday that it was considering a possible ""white knight"" bid to merge its metals assets with those of Alisher Usmanov's Gazmetall, as Norilsk Nickel struggles to fend off a merger with RusAl on unfavorable terms.

Complete coverage of the U.S.-Russia summit, being held July 6-8 in Moscow.

Vladimir Putin made what seemed to be an implausible promise in August 1999. The newly appointed prime minister said he could end a crisis caused by the incursion of 2,000 rebels from Chechnya into Dagestan in ""a week and a half or two weeks.""

The public protests shook the president and nearly toppled a government. But the thousands of angry demonstrators that flooded onto the streets of towns and cities around the country in January 2005 were not opposition activists protesting the rollback of democracy or Kremlin policy in the Caucasus.

Dmitry Medvedev won the presidential election last weekend on a promise that he would govern hand in hand with Vladimir Putin in the interest of stability.

While the presidential election proved entirely predictable, the transfer of power from Vladimir Putin to Dmitry Medvedev looks likely to be anything but.

Few people had heard of former KGB officer Vladimir Putin when he became prime minister in 1999. But with his taciturn, slightly intimidating face, one thing seemed certain: He didn't look like a comedian.

On his first official visit to European capitals since being named the Kremlin's favored presidential successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was in Belgrade and Budapest on Monday, announcing Hungary's participation in the South Stream pipeline and pledging significant economic and political aid to Serbia.