Vladimir Putin has announced his new Cabinet, stuffed with long-term loyalists.  Igor Shuvalov is second-in-command.  Arkady Dvorkovich is the new deputy prime minister, replacing Igor Sechin.  Vladislav Surkov, Dmitry Kozak, Dmitry Rogozin and Alexander Khloponin all keep their existing positions as deputies.  Here’s a selection of what various sources are saying about the Cabinet of cronies:

IGOR SHUVALOV: ‘While Shuvalov’s emergence as sole first deputy prime minister was taken as a clear signal that Putin is calling the shots, others speculated that his old adversary Igor Sechin would continue to wield influence from behind the scenes.‘ Shuvalov, who has been in government since 1997, is ‘widely recognized as a “Putin man.”’

KOLOKOLTSEV & OPPOSITION: ‘Critics said the new government showed that Putin – faced with the biggest street protests since the fall of the Soviet Union — was carrying on with the same approach as before. He had made no concessions to the opposition, they added, unveiling a cabinet made up of trusted loyalists and stooges.‘ The New York Times says that Putin’s promotion of Moscow’s police chief to the post of interior minister ‘endors[es] his work in keeping protests in check, and signal[s] to the opposition that he will brook no dissent in his six-year term. “He’s known as the man who kept order during the protests, and that is what’s important for the Kremlin,” Andrei Soldatov, an author and expert on Russia’s security forces, said of Kolokoltsev.‘