Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared it was “entirely realistic” that he will become prime minister of Russia after stepping down as president next March. Putin is barred from seeking a third term as president, so his bid to become prime minister is widely viewed as an attempt to hold on to the political power he has been assiduously consolidating since he was first elected in 2000.

Putin’s increasingly autocratic rule –- his suppression of dissent, his bullying of Russia’s neighbors, his nostalgia for Russia’s imperialist past and what might be called his attempt to establish a Russian sphere of influence in the Middle East –- all recalled to my mind an epigram of Oscar Wilde’s that I forgot to include in my last post.

In 1880, Wilde wrote his first play, a lurid melodrama about Russian revolutionaries called, Vera; or, The Nihilists. It’s claptrap, but it has a few good lines. One of them is particularly pertinent in light of Mr. Putin’s ambitions: “Nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.”

Given Mr. Putin’s KGB past and his actions to date, it seems “entirely realistic” that Oscar’s epigram will be validated.