For Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it has been a hectic summer. He took a spin across 2,100 km of the Siberian tundra in a Lada, was initiated into the Hell's Angels, fired darts at gray whales with a crossbow and still found time to jump into the cockpit of a Be-200 jet to extinguish the wildfires devastating western Russia. There's no rest for the wicked.
Usefully, all of Putin's antics were captured for TV. Given his public relations rampage, it is unsurprising that at a dinner last week with the Valdai club — a group of foreign experts on Russia — Putin was asked about his plans for the next Russian presidential election in 2012. In answering with reference to Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected U.S. president four times, Putin gave his clearest indication yet that he intends to come back as president for another two terms.
Putin's possible return to the Kremlin will not please Japan's foreign policymakers. During his previous eight years as president, relations between Moscow and Tokyo remained cool. No serious efforts were made to overcome the long-standing and acrimonious dispute over the Northern Territories, a group of four islands seized from Japan by Stalin during the closing phase of World War II.