Dmitry Medvedev, the most likely successor to the Kremlin presidency, called on President Vladimir Putin Tuesday to become prime minister, resolving months of uncertainty over Russia's future power constellation.

"I declare my readiness to stand as candidate for the presidential elections, and I consider it crucial for our country to keep such a major post of power and authority - the post of prime minister - for Vladimir Putin," Medvedev said on state-owned television Vesti 24.

Putin Monday had said he "fully and completely" supported Medvedev's candidacy nominated by pro-Kremlin parties who together won 80 per cent of seats in Russia's lower house.

Medvedev, who holds a cabinet post and also chairs the board of state energy monopoly Gazprom, is practically guaranteed to be elected in Putin's place - riding on the coat tails of the president's skyrocketing popularity.

One week after Putin's party won by a landslide in controversial parliamentary elections, Putin seems to have decided two of the country's biggest political questions: who will succeed him, and what role he will take at the end of his constitutionally mandated term.

"There is no question the statement was decided before with Putin. I don't think this could be Medvedev's own initiative," Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who tracks Kremlin politics, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

But in a televised speech following Medvedev's surprise statement, Putin did not comment on his first deputy prime minister's proposal.

Kremlin-connected analyst Gleb Pavlovsky said Putin would not rush his response, so as to allow for the media effect in favour of his tapped successor Medvedev. But "after a time" Putin would agree.

The most immediate motive "is measured to assure Putin's political presence to the maximum degree in association with the candidate. It will be an electorate boost to Medvedev if Putin does not hurry with the answer," said Pavlovsky, Director of the Centre for Effective Politics.

Tuesday's political shakeup comes one week before the pro-Kremlin United Russia party congress to discuss "Plan Putin," the programme that handed the party a massive victory, campaigning on the buzz words of "stability" and "continuity.

The soft-spoken Medvedev, a graduate of the same St Petersburg law school as the president, said in his three-minute televised statement that he would ensure continuity of the course set by Putin in the past eight years.

Putin first hired Medvedev in the early 1990s in St Petersburg, and, staunchly loyal to his employer, he quickly rose from campaign manager in 2000, to head of the presidential administration and Gazprom chairman.

This history begs the questions of whether Medvedev would come into his own as an independent leader or serve as a figure head for a "Prime Minister Putin" controlling a big enough majority to push through constitutional changes of power.

In Tuesday's three-minute statement, Medvedev - put in charge of the multibillion-dollar national projects to improve health care, education, housing - stuck to the role assigned him as Putin's first deputy prime minister

He said his priority was to convert the countries' booming oil profits over the last eight years into concrete social programmes, and echoed nationalistic rhetoric that characterize Putin's public statements.

"The world's relationship toward Russia has changed. They no longer lecture us like schoolchildren," Medvedev said in the broadcast.

"Medvedev was one of the two candidates personally groomed by Putin in the last two years. He was chosen for continuity to preside over Putin's own strategy and legacy," said Lilia Shevtsova, a specialist in Russian politics at the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

Shevtsova said the choice of liberal-minded lawyer Medvedev, who is not part of the Siloviki or Russian security elite, over his main competitor the tough-imaged former defence minister Sergei Ivanov, was a new direction for the country.

Medvedev won endorsement from fellow Cabinet member Ivanov, as well as the backing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she believed Medvedev was "very experienced in economics and politics."

The Russian stock market jumped on the news of Medvedev's favour, and shares of state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, chaired by Medvedev, jumped 1.6 per cent.

Kryshtanovskaya said "Medvedev is a figure of compromise," putting an end to Putin's erratic promotions and praise of members of his retinue that have fuelled to rumoured infighting among Russia's political elite.

"He is the most politically weak of the discussed candidates. Without his own circle of support, power will remain in the hands of Putin," the sociologist from the Academy of Sciences added.