If approved by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia's most ambitious asset sale plan since the rigged privatizations of the 1990s could help President Dmitry Medvedev plug a hole in the budget ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

Finance ministry sources told Reuters on Saturday that minority stakes in ten firms — including Russia's biggest oil producer Rosneft, lender VTB and oil pipeline monopoly Transneft — would be sold off.

"The whole point about privatization programs is that they never happen so what is important here is whether anything happens at all — something or nothing," said Christopher Granville, a Russia analyst at London-based emerging market investment research firm Trusted Sources.

"This initiative by the Finance Ministry suggests that at least something will happen," he said.

Ministry sources said on Saturday the asset sale idea had been discussed and judged realistic at a preliminary meeting chaired by Putin, Russia's most powerful politician.

A Finance Ministry spokesman on Monday confirmed a shortlist of companies had been drawn up but gave no figures and said no final decision had yet been made on the sales. It was also unclear whether the sales would involve foreign investors, be through open stock market tenders or targeted deals.

The plans have also been devised to ensure that the state will keep control over major companies, a step that could ensure support from many of the powerful clans within the Kremlin who are eager for state control of assets deemed strategic.

Investors said the asset sale plan offered the government an attractive alternative to higher taxation in its battle to reduce budget deficits ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

Russia wants to cut its budget deficit to 4 percent of GDP in 2011 and 2.9 percent in 2012 from around 5 percent — or $80 billion — this year. Russian officials say they want to balance the budget by 2015.

Moscow has huge reserves built up over years of high oil prices and can afford to cover the deficit. But the Finance Ministry is using the debate over the shortfall to seek to advance market and fiscal reforms while times are good.