Yup, he’s back. Not that he ever went away of course. Out of the dozens of articles examining Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he will be running for President, Julia Ioffe’s piece in Foreign Policy is particularly insightful.  Here are some bleak predictions for a Putin weary-world:

So what will happen now that the end and beginning are one? Some are predicting a new wave of immigration — or a class of dual-citizenship holders — for those who had other things in mind for the next 12 years. Others see Medvedev, as prime minister, shouldering the blame for the next wave of economic crisis. (“Prime ministers are easy to replace,” notes Lipman.) Still others see Putin steering the ship of state for a few more years and stepping down early. But Kolesnikov sees 12 more years for Putin, “because it’s the first version” again. Pavlovsky, though, sees altogether different man: “The Putin of 2000 was a politician I loved, but that Putin is dead,” he says. “And the Putin of 2007 is gone. Today’s Putin is a zombie.”