[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I wonder what the relationships are between Putin, Gorbachev and Primakov. Same goes for Yeltsin.

[Tailgunner Joe]

"What Putin has done for Russia has already gone down in history. He pulled a collapsing state out of chaos, when the army, the Federation, and the social and economic systems, were all disintegrating." - Mikhail Gorbachev

Russia becomes free country under Yeltsin - Putin

[GSlob]

It does not matter who runs, or will run, the government. Whoever gets there will be pretty adequate to the "people" or, more scientifically, to the civilizational way of life. And these civilizational systems, per Samuel Huntington, are stable on 500 years+ scale.
I will illustrate what I mean here with a true story which happened in the United States: at my former workplace they were conducting an executive search for a "sweep" [SVP = senior vice president]. Large sweep's office remained empty for about half a year. Nobody knew who would get there, or when. Once I put on a [pretty exaggerated] facial expression of a prophet from bad movies, and with outstretched hand and wild look predicted what they should put on the nameplate on sweep's door: "I see it... I see it... GREEDY A**HOLE!".
Well, couple months later they did get their sweep. And was I proved right! Within a year they squeezed him out. A homework for you: and what is his replacement? Here it was the adequacy to the corporate culture which allowed for prediction.
The same here: there is no need to know who they are, or will be. What's needed to know is what they are. And this is perfectly knowable and predictable from the first principles.