MOSCOW — A Kremlin-linked Web site on Wednesday leaked a video clip of an angry President Vladimir V. Putin threatening to dismiss top officials, fueling speculation that Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev and members of his cabinet are in danger of being fired.

The video was published hours before Mr. Medvedev was to report to Parliament, a yearly event in which he is expected to respond to criticism. Mr. Putin’s press secretary called the leak “unacceptable from an ethical standpoint,” and said the Kremlin might have to “stop our relationship with Life News,” a tabloid-like site that published the clip. Before beginning his blistering rebuke, Mr. Putin asked that the camera be turned off.

But politics here takes place amid onionskin layers of artifice, and many analysts concluded that the Kremlin intentionally released it as a warning shot to Mr. Medvedev.

Mr. Medvedev’s influence deteriorated sharply when he and Mr. Putin switched positions last year. Each heads a powerful apparatus and each has his own priorities: Mr. Medvedev cares more about innovation and economic development, whereas Mr. Putin prioritizes the expansive social pledges that were central to his re-election bid, said Aleksei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, a research group in Moscow.