MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday gave several unpopular ministers purged from his Cabinet new positions in his administration, while the Kremlin-controlled parliament considered a draconian bill introducing a 200-fold rise in fines for taking part in unsanctioned protests.
Putin named ex-Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev as an undersecretary of the presidential Security Council and named several other former ministers as presidential advisors.
Putin, who won a third term in March's election, on Monday named a new Cabinet led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, retaining some key figures but dropping some of the most widely detested ministers, like Nurgaliyev, Health Minister Tatyana Golikova and Education Minister Andrei Fursenko.
Nurgaliyev has faced massive public criticism over widespread incidents of torture and other abuses by police, while Golikova and Fursenko have been linked to the worsening state of the nation's healthcare and education systems.
The appointment of former ministers to new official positions has been expected given Putin's record of keeping his lieutenants in government service despite public criticism.
Putin's re-election bid was challenged by massive demonstrations against his 12-year rule that drew up to 100,000 people in Moscow, but the protests have abated after the vote and the Kremlin has taken an increasingly tough stance against the opposition.
A demonstration of at least 20,000 people a day before Putin's May 7 inauguration turned into a fierce battle with police as some of the participants tried to march on the Kremlin. Scores were injured in clashes and hundreds were detained as police chased the opposition members around the city.
Putin's opponents sought to maintain momentum by holding a series of protests in downtown Moscow, but police moved quickly to disperse them.
In a new move to rein in the opposition, the lower house of the parliament on Tuesday was set to debate a bill raising the level of fines for taking part in unsanctioned rallies from the current maximum 5,000 rubles ($160) to 1,000,000 rubles ($32,250).
The opposition denounced the move as an attempt to stifle dissent. Sergei Mironov, the leader of the socialist Just Russia faction, said it would boycott the hearings of the "odious" bill. The Communists said they would vote against the new legislation, but the opposition doesn't have enough votes to block the bill's passage in the State Duma dominated by the Kremlin's United Russia party.
Police on Tuesday quickly rounded up several members of the liberal Yabloko party, who attempted to protest against the new bill outside the parliament building.
Yaboloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin told reporters before being detained by police that the bill was intended to intimidate the opposition. "A direct signal is being made by those in power: sit down and keep quite!" he said.
Putin spent four years in the premier's seat after serving two consecutive terms as the president due to a constitutional term limit, but he remained Russia's No. 1 leader all along. His protege Medvedev stepped down to allow Putin to reclaim the presidency, receiving the premiership in exchange.
Putin's fellow KGB veterans Sergei Ivanov and Nikolai Patrushev have been respectively re-appointed as the Kremlin chief of staff and the head of the presidential Security Council.
Several officials who served in Medvedev's administration during his presidency followed him to the Cabinet, while Putin retained some of those who served under him during his premiership, like his spokesman Dmitry Peskov who got the same job in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
