Moscow - The Kremlin's image-makers manoeuvring through the hectic run-up to Wednesday's transition of power have ensured that Russia's two leaders are viewed as an indivisible winning team.

The dwarfing doors of Moscow's halls of power opened to reveal President Valdimir Putin and successor-elect Dmitry Medvedev marching jauntily down the red carpet with their matching 170-centimetre and 160-centimetre strides in storybook media shots any number of times in recent months.

The tale is of the young lawyer, Medvedev - stamped illustrious from the same alma mater as Putin and his native St Petersburg - earning the trust of Russia's leader through years of working under him.

This week, Medvedev will become president while Putin moves to the post of prime minister, and the two will rule in seamless tandem, as both have promised repeatedly.

Observers desperate to glean some projection of the future have resorted to dissecting Medvedev's political biography and drawing sociological inferences.

One leader is an easy foil for the other.

Despite reportedly training with a specialist to ape Putin's style from his speech down to his walk, according to Kremlin insiders, Medvedev has let slip views that tend to be more liberal than Putin. That has been enough for even the most cynical Kremlin critics to see a possibility of change.

Former chess champion and fierce Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov, in a recent interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, admitted to a watered-down hope that Medvedev could bring a political thaw.

In fact, Medvedev's curriculum vitae could hardly be more different from his tough-guy mentor, who has been accused of curbing political freedoms and consolidating power during his eight-year rule.

The question is whether Medvedev will rebel against the father- figure of Putin and step out of his shadow to fulfil the aspiration that Western diplomats place in Medvedev's most recent comments in favour of multi-party competition, press freedom, reforming Russia's courts and warmer relations with the West.

A visit by Egyptian President Mubarak last month didn't seem promising.

"When I was heading into a meeting with Mr Medvedev in the Kremlin and at the same time watched you on television, I was at a loss over who's who - there's little difference between you two," Mubarak told an unamused Putin.

Outside hopes for a change in management from Putin's firm grip on power rest on the fact that Medvedev does not have the KGB background shared by Putin and his prominent circle of Kremlin elites.

Sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who tracks elite dynamics with the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted: "Russia is about to have a president who is very young and who may be described as a member of the intelligentsia in terms of his background and education."

"Medvedev is likely to bring intellectuals, technocrats, and entrepreneurs into the Kremlin," which could replace the siloviki or Kremlin security elite, who now make up roughly 30 per cent of the political elite, Kryshtanovskaya said.

Thirteen years younger than Putin, the soft-spoken Medvedev hails from a different generation that came of age with the defeat of communism and the shimmering of glasnost. He has reminisced about saving and scouting to buy Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath records.

In contrast, Putin, 55, was brought up in the folds of communist belief and with the security forces learned to equate national power with military might. He has called the collapse of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."

Though such different biographies betray deeper political differences between the two men, Medvedev was elected on repeated promises to continue Putin's course and a tacit acquiescence to share power with Putin as prime minister.

Many analysts are skeptical that Medvedved can be anything but a puppet figure without his own political power base, constrained by Putin loyalists in the Kremlin and forced to consult with the premier on every issue.

But a Kremlin-connected analyst said Monday that efforts to meld Putin and Medvedev's images before the power transition would fade, exposing Medvedev's own style.

Putin has relished the press in super-hero fashion, highlighting his martial arts, skiing and hunting prowess, while his wife and two daughters are kept from the limelight and never pictured with him.

But Medvedev is a model bourgeois, and his wife is a public fashionista. He has written several respected legal texts, and swimming and yoga feature as his daily recreations.

Business people and analysts said this change in style could be meaningful in itself.

The lack of visible toughness in Medvedev should be treated as an asset, said Igor Yurgens, vice president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the country's biggest lobby group.

"Medvedev is the kind of a leader who doesn't bark orders but works with people and shares the proceeds with them," Yurgens said.

Kremlin spin doctor Sergey Markov told dpa that Medvedev would progressively be offered a longer leash to pursue his own politics.

"If Medvedev is successful, then Putin will back out. If Medvedev does a bad job he can come back," Markov said. But "Putin is not obsessed with power. He wants to give (Medvedev) a chance." (dpa)