MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kolesnikov) - Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov's resignation was expected - even if surprising. In short, things had been too good for too long to last.
Thoughtful observers may long have noticed that Vladimir Putin never fires top officials exactly when they come under pressure or commit a spectacular blunder. The Ustinov story was just this: he has not been implicated in anything suspicious lately, which then appeared to have been a lull before the storm.
Vladimir Ustinov had seven relatively smooth years in office and managed to leave without being tarred and feathered - a rare thing for a Russian prosecutor general. The first one, charismatic Alexei Kazannik, got the position from Boris Yeltsin in return for political favors done back in the Soviet parliament but left very soon; Alexei Ilyushenko ended up in jail; and Ustinov's predecessor Yury Skuratov - sorry, "the man resembling prosecutor general" featured on a televised videotape - was forced to resign after a sex scandal.
In personal terms, Ustinov walked out of all the troubles encountered during his term of office, including many high-profile trials in which he was involved directly or by definition as a head of law enforcement. In comparison with scandals surrounding his predecessors, Ustinov's only peculiar episode with the president "failing to get the prosecutor general on the phone" when pressed by European media on the fate of imprisoned tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky simply does not count.
However, he never felt relaxed and was repeatedly on the verge of resignation. Each time the first man watching his struggle was Dmitry Kozak, the architect of many reforms, including that of the judiciary, widely believed to be his closest rival. Although Kozak was eventually exiled as presidential envoy to the politically and otherwise dangerous Southern Federal District, he is now credited as the first heir to the prosecutor's throne.
In relations with his own staff, Ustinov was controversial - prosecutors were understandably unhappy about slow growth of pay and grumbled over having to surrender many of their powers, including the power to arrest detainees, to courts - but the inside opposition could hardly lead to political results. What has probably played a stronger role in the decision is a simple premise that seven years in one place for a senior federal official is far too long. Enough is enough.
What is important in any case is that Ustinov's departure signals a thorough transformation of prosecutorial service. In the very least, in will be restructured, but the option of it becoming part of the executive or judicial power is also still open.
