Seliger (Tver Region), 21 July: According to Sergey Ivanov and Dmitriy Medvedev, Russia's first deputy prime ministers, they will soon be able to give their answer to the question of whether they will run for president.

At their meeting on Saturday [21 July] with activists from the Nashi youth group on Lake Seliger, Ivanov and Medvedev in particular clarified where they stand on the issue.

One of the young people asked whose election headquarters it would make sense to join, to which Ivanov replied: "You will not have to wait long now. You are young, so you'll definitely live to see that day. If you still want to, Dmitriy Anatolyevich [Medvedev] and I will think it over and make a decision."

In turn, Medvedev used young people's language to say that, as regards this, "what matters is to be cool, to chill out about it, to wait and see what happens".

"You can be in no doubt that our country will not be left rudderless," he summed up.

The main task of those who will come to power in 2008 is to make sure that "the hopes that have been built up over the past few years are not wasted, are not short-changed on but are seen through to their logical conclusion", according to Medvedev.