MOSCOW - Viktor Kazantsev, relieved of his duties as the president’s envoy to the restless Southern Federal District in this week’s government reshuffle, was sidelined from the country’s ''Chechen policy'' long before President Putin signed the decree replacing him with Vladimir Yakovlev. The new envoy, however, is unlikely to have a greater say on Chechnya either.

The intrigue behind General Kazantsev’s removal to ''the reserve'' shortly before Russia’s presidential elections proves that the powers-that-be do not want to let the public know who in truth determines Russian policy in the Northern Caucasus.

Viktor Germanovich Kazantsev always protested when the area he was in charge of as presidential envoy was referred to as the ''Caucasus''. ''Not the Caucasus, but the South of Russia,'' he used to correct his subordinates.

For Kazantsev it was a mere statement of fact that the Southern Federal District, in addition to the Caucasian republics, also included several other regions that do not belong to the Caucasus.

However, one could sense that behind the envoy’s wish to ''dilute'' Chechnya in that ''Russian South'' there was a desire not to unnecessarily remind the public that the Chechen settlement was the main reason he had been appointed to the post in the first place.

Soon after Kazantsev was named the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, however, it became clear that, in actual fact, he had no real influence over the situation in Chechnya whatsoever.

The fact that the envoy’s office was excluded from any decision-making in Chechnya was admitted publicly even by Kazantsev’s closest allies and supporters – Bislan Gantamirov, to name but one, who served as the chief federal inspector in Kazantsev’s office at one time.

Indeed, it was not Kazantsev who decided to ''bet'' on Akhmad Kadyrov (the former chief of the Chechen civil administration who became president last year with the Kremlin’s backing). It was not Kazantsev who ensured the disqualification from Chechnya’s presidential election of all key rivals to the former Mufti Kadyrov. It was not Kazantsev who turned the mysterious Ziyad Sabsabi, an ethnic Syrian with a St. Petersburg university degree, into the head of Kadyrov’s staff.

At the same time, the ''Daddy'' (as Kazantsev’s subordinates in Rostov-on-Don used to call him) always had his hands full. Incidentally, he had not anticipated his dismissal, taking active steps to strengthen his team and improve their operation.

In terms of the Russian South, the aides he hired were relatively good, but at the same time inclined to inertia, which explains why they failed several times to respond promptly to the changing situation in the region. For instance, two years ago Kazantsev’s staff failed to notice and forestall the landslide victory of Khazret Sovmen in the presidential elections in the Republic of Adygea. In 2003, while they tarried, Mustafa Batdiyev secured a convincing victory in the presidential elections in Karachai-Cherkessia without any support from the envoy’s office whatsoever.

Also, the envoy’s team always had a penchant for rifts and rows, which eventually led to the formation of two rival groups within Kazantsev’s entourage – the so-called Rostov and Krasnodar groups.

All that, however, is but a manifestation of the universal characteristics of Russia’s bureaucrats, and it would be naive to assume that Vladimir Yakovlev, who has succeeded Kazantsev, will be able to change anything very quickly.

But even if he does, nobody is going to give Yakovlev responsibility for anything serious in Chechnya. Unlike Kazantsev, the former governor of St. Petersburg is unfamiliar with the situation in the volatile south. At the same time, the post of federal minister for Chechen affairs has been abolished, which means that, formally, Yakovlev remains the only governmental official who can be made responsible for that work.

There appears to be only one tendency behind the new appointment: policy for Chechnya is to be pushed even farther away from the public domain.

The new appointment also proves that the Kremlin is not yet ready to settle the situation in the Caucasus with the help of regional leaders. This is hardly surprising. Only the other day one patriotic-minded radio-commentator expressed surprise at ethnic Tatar Rashid Nurgaliyev’s appointment as interior minister. If his appointment seems surprising, what hope is there for natives of Chechnya and Ingushetia?