Speculation grew today that Prime Minister Mr Mikhail Kasyanov, the only major political survivor of the era before President Vladimir Putin, would be the next casualty of the crisis surrounding the YUKOS oil company.
Mr Kasyanov said yesterday he was concerned by the arrest of YUKOS boss Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, on massive fraud charges in a clear challenge to Mr Putin, who has said the case must be left to the prosecutors.
"There can be only one explanation for this: Kasyanov is being prepared for his removal or already knows about it," said the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Mr Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint a week ago. Since then prosecutors have frozen a major stake in YUKOS, the company's shares have lost more than 20 percent, and Mr Putin has faced the biggest political and economic crisis of his career.
The crisis has already claimed a major political scalp in Kremlin chief of staff Mr Alexander Voloshin -- seen as close to business and another survivor from politics in the 1990s, when well-connected businessmen like Mr Khodorkovsky made fortunes.
"It seems that Kasyanov is preparing himself for the end," said Mark Urnov, a Kremlin insider in the 1990s and political analyst with the Fond Analitika think tank.
"Voloshin and Kasyanov both distanced themselves from the line which Putin supports, that of suppressing any potential political opponents, with the help of the general prosecutor."
The daily Izvestia said Voloshin's replacement by lawyer Dmitry Medvedev would provoke changes in government personnel, although it did not specifically mention Kasyanov, who served as finance minister under former President Boris Yeltsin.