What the head of state has said...
Dmitry Medvedev will visit Berlin today to attend celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the eve of his trip he gave an interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel.
...On the Medvedev-Putin tandem
"No one can doubt that our "tandem," as it's commonly called, is working well. In spite of all the predictions that we are about to butt heads, this clearly isn't the case. Everyone has their personal preference in terms of views, behaviour and delivery style. This applies to Vladimir Putin and myself. I would hate it if we came to be seen as aging leaders of the CPSU Polutburo standing on top of the Mausoleum in the same coats and hats, making it impossible to tell Comrade Brezhnev from Comrade Suslov. I‘d recommend reading Putin's exact words (about who should run for President in 2012 -- Izvestia). All he said was that if, at the time of the next presidential elections, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev are still popular political figures, then we would sit down and discuss which of us should run for president so as not to get in each other's way. He did not say that we would decide who would become the next president. That would have been ridiculous."
Asked why he doesn't criticize Putin for the lack of modernization in the Russian economy, whereas Putin often criticized his prime ministers when he was president, Mr Medvedev responded: "Our economy became dependent on commodities forty years ago, not when Putin became president. It will take a long time to change that. Look at a map of Russia. Look at our foreign trade balance and the excess of exports over imports. Think about our social welfare obligations, and then look at how much tax revenue comes from oil and gas, and it will all become clear. And finally, over the past ten years the Russian government hasn't been voted out for not meeting its obligations."