He's "running" for president again. Georgi Derluguian eyes Russia's fragile economy:
A major unknown … is how would Putin’s notoriously inefficient and venal ‘vertical of power’ fare in the face of world economic turmoil? Retrench and pray for high oil prices, collapse in the face of protests and elite defections, or turn into a developmental dictatorship of savings? Still more unknown is what could be the ideologies and mobilization resources of the opposition in the eventuality of catastrophic crisis with such daily-life occurrences as electrical shutdowns and industrial accidents.
Matt Stopera captions the above photo, by Getty's Alexey Druzhinina, "Vladimir Putin autographing a huge portait of himself for a little girl. Like a boss."
The Dish 