Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday at a State Department news briefing that Medvedev, nominated on Monday by the ruling United Russia party as a candidate for the March 2008 presidential elections, was "a very intelligent person. He is of another generation."
Rice also noted Medvedev's efforts to diversify the Russian economy and his work "to wire the country with the Internet."
President Putin announced on Monday his backing for Medvedev, who also chairs the board of directors of energy giant Gazprom, as a candidate for the March 2, 2008 election.
Medvedev, in turn, subsequently proposed on Tuesday that Putin be appointed prime minister after the upcoming presidential election.
Although the choice of Medvedev surprised many Western analysts, the majority of whom had believed that Putin would plump for a hard-line 'siloviki' successor, the current first deputy prime minister's nomination was welcomed in the West, where the forty-two-year old has been widely described as "a champion of the free market."
Given Putin's popularity and support of most of the legislature, his endorsement of his longtime ally is likely to guarantee Medvedev the presidency.
This was an issue also touched upon by Rice, the U.S. secretary of state saying that "I would hope that the time will come when Russia is going into a presidential election where there is a realistic chance for a really contested election. And I think that, to me, is the biggest problem with this."
"We've made very clear that we think democratic processes have taken a step backward in Russia. It's not an environment in which you can talk about free and fair elections," she added.
