Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Merkator consulting group:
The governors who lost their posts were not effective administrators. It is good to change the management sometimes. We have many regional heads who obviously should be dismissed, beginning with [Sergei] Darkin. Therefore I do not see big politics behind these resignations. This should have been done long ago. Vladimir Putin could not take risks, but Dmitry Medvedev has to do it because of the crisis. Besides, he is starting to feel like he is in command now.
Nikolai Kharitonov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Agrarian Issues Committee (member of the Communist Party):
The Government started trying to find out who was to blame when it was already too late. We are witnessing growing unemployment and a rise in crime. And this all is because sometime the oligarchs seized people's property. Governors can feel the mood among the public, and therefore three of them resigned. And the Voronezh Governor, whose powers are coming to an end, did not ask for trust. If United Russia bears responsibility for everything, so let it be responsible for Governors' work, too.
Gennady Raikov, member of the Central Election Commission, former leader of the People's Party:
That's a usual practice, so I do not think that any of the Governors dismissed were guilty of anything. If someone should go to jail, he would have been there long ago, because public executions are always educative.
Leonid Potapov, former President of Buryatia:
These dismissals took me off guard. I was really surprised by the resignation of Yegor Stroyev. What happened? There were no preconditions for that.
Alexander Khristoforov, head of the Pskov Regional Legislative Assembly Committee for Labour and Social Policy:
Mikhail Kuznetsov's dismissal is connected with the changes in the structure of the regional elite that are going on in Russia. He was not a representative of the group in power.
Stanislav Belkovsky, President of the National Strategy Institute:
These dismissals are not connected directly with the crisis. It is an attempt to show that the authorities started reacting to systemic problems. In fact, it was financial and industrial groups which were in a weak position on the federal level that stood behind these dismissals. [Alexei] Gordeyev was transferred to another post because of his confrontation with [Viktor] Zubkov and [Igor] Sechin's weakening position. What is important is not who is going to be next, but when [Vladimir] Putin is going to be next. It does not matter who is going to be appointed, because the new Governors are even less known for any achievements.
Sergei Ivanenko, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party:
This is another stage of building a vertical of power, because in two out of four cases the Governors were chosen by their electorate. In the regions headed by the dismissed Governors the situation was no worse than in Russia in general.