[B]eyond the tightly choreographed meeting, news that the 63-year-old Ivanov -- a man who Putin once said was among his most trusted advisors -- would request to leave one month before parliamentary elections and in the middle of fresh standoff with Ukraine -- has been met with great skepticism. The details behind the high-level shake-up within the Kremlin are not clear, but many analysts view the move as part of a wider trend within Putin's inner circle: He has been replacing older members with a younger generation of officials to reorder the political elite to his benefit.

"Psychologically, it's easier for Putin these days to be around the people who always thought of him as the great leader and cannot recall the times when Putin was not that great leader," Stanislav Belkovsky, a former Kremlin spin doctor and Putin critic, told Ekho Moskvy, a prominent Russian radio station, on Friday.