Zubkov to boost Russia's military and economy
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By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:21am BST 15/09/2007

Russia's new prime minister has pledged to boost the country's military
might amid growing signs that he could emerge as President Vladimir
Putin's sucessor next spring.

Viktor Zubkov, an old friend of the president who served as a
low-profile bureaucrat until his dramatic elevation this week, spoke
after he was approved in his new position by Russia's rubber-stamp
parliament.

Having become the first Kremlin heavyweight to declare an interest in
contesting presidential elections next March, when Mr Putin is
constitutionally obliged to step down, Mr Zubkov seemed to win the
president's tangential support for his bid.

Mr Putin said on Friday that there were five people with a "real chance"
of succeeding him - but only mentioned his little known but ultra-loyal
prime minister by name.

The extraordinary hints surrounding Mr Zubkov's future have turned the
former collective farm boss into a strong candidate for the succession.

Yet, given the president's proclivity for convoluted mind games,
analysts warn that Mr Putin could be playing a double bluff in order to
confuse Kremlin apparatchiks and avoid lame duck status.

Keen to demonstrate his allegiance to his boss, Mr Zubkov told deputies
that he would dedicate his attentions to advancing Mr Putin's favourite
projects: the restoration of Russia's military might and the resurgence
of Russia's energy-fuelled economy.

"Our strategic goal is to help lift the defence industry complex," he
said. "I believe it is proper to centre the government's efforts on the
development of Russia's traditionally powerful shipbuilding and aircraft
industries."

Since Mr Putin came to power in 2000, the Kremlin has poured
increasingly large amounts of cash into Russia's rusting military in
what appears to be a bid to regain the country's superpower status.

That presence is increasingly being felt in the West, with RAF jets
again being forced to scramble on Friday after two Russian bombers
probed British air space off the north coast of Scotland for the sixth
time in two months.

The Kremlin Zoria
The Kremlin Zoria has drawn favourable comparisons with the Edinburgh Tattoo

On Saturday, however, Mr Putin will revel in a military display of a
different sort as he takes the salute from British and Russian troops
massed in Red Square to take part in Moscow's first ever military
tattoo. The extravaganza, inspired and based on the Edinburgh tattoo,
will be replete with historical symbolism.

Russia's Presidential regiment band and the Central Band of the Russian
Army will be bedecked in imperial uniforms not worn since the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917.

It is another sign of how Mr Putin, often seen as wedded to the
country's Soviet past, has cherry-picked from both Tsarist and Communist
era traditions in a bid to project Russia's might.

Since he came to power in 2000, he has controversially restored the
music of the Soviet national anthem and revived the Soviet era red star
as the Russian military's emblem.

But he has also resurrected the tsarist-era double headed eagle as the
country's national crest in an indication of his fascination with
Russia's imperial heritage.

And, despite underlying tensions with London, British forces will march
through Red Square for the first time in history.

Sixteen regimental bands, including Scottish pipes and drummers and
their counterparts from the Dominions and South Africa, will play a
central role in proceedings.

German troops, shedding the uncomfortable memories of two failed
invasions of Russia during the world wars, have marched through the
centre of Moscow.

"I've seen the reverse of what one reads in the press," said Brigadier
Melville Jameson, former chief executive of the Edinburgh Tattoo and an
advisor to the event. "We've had nothing but support and friendship for
everything we've done. Music crosses all boundaries."

The festival, known as Kremlin Zoria, has already drawn favourable
comparisons with the Edinburgh tattoo since its first performance on
Thursday.

Cossack dancers and Russian mounted guardsmen delighted a 7,000-strong
audience in front of the famous domes of St Basil's cathedral before the
Commonwealth pipes and drums emerged from the Kremlin's Spassky Gate in
a shroud of dry ice.

The event culminated in a spectacular finale, with over 1,000 soldiers,
accompanied by a choir, massed on the cobbles of the square to perform
excerpts from Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, Beethoven's Ode to Joy and
the Coldstream Guards' famous arrangement of Amazing Grace.

The final salute, accompanied by a blaze of fireworks, was taken by
Prince Michael of Kent.

"People in the West have this image of Red Square as full of rockets,
tanks and lots of soldiers," said Vitaly Mironov, the chief producer of
Kremlin Zoria. "We want to show that the Russian army is not just about
fighting but also about playing music."

Mr Putin was reported on Friday to have refused to rule out a return to
office after his successor steps down in 2012.

Asked at a meeting with academics in the city of Sochi, he said that he
cared about Russia's stability and said its government needed to
continue his policies. "He did not rule out he would try and return to
the presidency," said one observer.