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HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE ELECTIONS

‘Zis is a zexy Frenchman calling to see if you want to have ze affair.’

SET LOYALTY TESTS

As a self-described ‘specialist in human relations’, Putin is always testing his inner circle. He even applied the tactic to his ex-wife Lyudmila.

‘Vladimir Vladimirovich has been testing me throughout our life together,’ she recalls. ‘I’ve always had the feeling that he’s watching me. It was like he was waiting to see if I would make the right decisions, whether I would pass the next test.’²

She even came to believe her then-boyfriend had tested her with a handsome, mustard-keen suitor who came out of nowhere pleading for her phone number and a date (something Putin with his KGB resources might easily have organised).

Be More Vlad

To test a work friend’s loyalty Putin-style, try inviting her to lunch on a day when you know full well she’s arranged to get a salad with the new starter. She should sack them off altogether or at the least invite you along. If not, you’ve got a traitor on your hands. Change her screensaver at the soonest opportunity so she arrives back at her desk to find the word JUDAS bouncing hauntingly around her screen.

‘You’re one of us now. There’s a secret handshake and you get the grass verge outside your house trimmed every six weeks.’

FORM A NEIGHBOURHOOD GROUP

The Ozero Cooperative, which sounds a bit like the secret organisation at the heart of a conspiracy thriller, was set up by a group of friends who own dachas on Lake Komsomolskoye, including one V. Putin. After he took power, Ozero members magically rose to assume top positions in the Russian government and economy.

Today these holiday-home owners also own banks, shipyards, gas companies, railways and nuclear fuel exporting businesses. You have to wonder if they are really suitable for their high-powered jobs, or just happened to share a waterfront with the right man at the right time.³

Be More Vlad

Starting a neighbourhood group as Putin did could be a great way to meet new friends and make sure local trees are properly maintained. It’s also a good opportunity to meet the teenage son from number 63; you know, the one who does model UN, just in case he ever ascends to reign supreme over a large chunk of the world’s population and mineral resources.

‘I enjoyed our after-work pint the other day so much I had this tattoo done. It’s you and me for ever now, bro.’

START A BROMANCE/WOMANCE

The rapport between Putin and former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi could gladden the heart of the most jaded political observer.

To seal their friendship, Putin bought Berlusconi a four-poster bed, which became famous when Berlusconi allegedly used it to partake of the services of prostitute Patricia D’Addario. In exchange, Berlusconi had a bedspread made for Putin featuring a life-size photographic image of the two leaders palling around, arms around each other’s shoulders.⁴

Be More Vlad

Get your friends lavish gifts and you can reasonably hope they’ll repay you with all kinds of custom-printed curtains, pelmets, lamp shades, rugs and other soft furnishings, until your bedroom eventually becomes a cosy gallery of your same-sex friendships that none who enter will be able to forget.

‘Well, my 12,000 new Bolivian Facebook friends don’t think we should break up.’

HIRE A SOCKPUPPET ARMY

Putin’s web brigades make him the world’s leading online influencer – and you can be just like him.

It’s alleged that ninety professional trolls,⁵ working from an anonymous-looking office block on Savushkina Street in St Petersburg, were paid by a shadowy organisation called the Internet Research Agency to mess with the 2016 US election. They worked day and night to influence opinion and make American politics seem even more divided than it really was, with each troll typing furiously to meet a quota of at least eighty comments and twenty shares per day across multiple fake social media accounts.⁶

Be More Vlad

Employing your own sockpuppet army on this scale could be expensive, so why not use actual sockpuppets instead? With one on each hand and foot, you can attend your local council’s next public meeting in the guise of a crowd of angry constituents, or even as a family of wacky snakes. It’s a great way to participate in local debate and advance your agenda just like Putin.

‘Before I tell you the total cost, I want you to look deep into my baby blue eyes.’

LOOK THEM RIGHT IN THE EYE

Whatever charm tricks Putin learned at KGB school, they seemed to work on President George W. Bush when they first met at a summit in 2001.

‘I looked the man in the eye,’ Bush said afterwards. ‘I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul.’

Condi Rice later recalled in her book No Greater Honour⁷ that Bush’s reaction had been a mistake: ‘We were never able to escape the perception that the president had naïvely trusted Putin and then been betrayed.’ (It probably didn’t help that Bush started referring to his new friend as Pootie Poot.⁸)

Be More Vlad

Eye contact is an easily forgotten basic. If you find yourself dealing with a touchingly naïve individual who’s been elevated far above his ability level, earn his trust by first giving him the chance to check you have a set of anatomically sound irises. Propping your eyelids open with a couple of matchsticks can help him get a really good look and confirm that you’re not hiding anything suspicious under there.

‘And our new school committee member is Victoria with, it says here, four billion votes.’

DON’T LEAVE VICTORY TO CHANCE

Only one man, Progress party leader Alexei Navalny, is a conceivable rival to Putin in the polls, and he’s banned from running.

But even in an undisputed contest, Putin leaves nothing to chance. According to election monitoring organisation Golos, tricks used in the 2018 election included ballot-stuffing, preventing people from entering polling stations and blocking official webcams with balloons and other objects.⁹

In largely Muslim Chechnya, turnout was 37% at polling stations attended by observers, and a hugely impressive but unlikely 99% elsewhere.

Be More Vlad

You can use similar belt-and-braces tactics to make sure of victory at your family’s Christmas Scrabble game. Step one is to wait until your aunt the English teacher is too drunk to play. Step two is to replace all your rivals’ letters with Es, Is and other one-pointers every time they leave the room. Step three is to give yourself an extra ten points every move for being so clever.

Some might call this cheating. You and Putin know that, as with democracy, it’s just how the game is played.

‘I won’t play you but I’ll take on your dog.’

CHOOSE YOUR OPPONENTS WISELY

Putin is so good at quashing domestic rivals there are often none left for him to run against. Not a good look in a young democracy.

In a seeming bid to create the semblance of an open contest, the Kremlin appears to have drafted in minor, sometimes geriatric, opponents.

Alleged examples include Sergey Mironov, whose election campaign included an impassioned plea to vote for Putin, not himself; Andrei Bogdanov, a freemason who is associated with more than thirty new political parties; and Ksenia Sobchak, an old family friend of Putin’s rumoured to be his goddaughter.¹⁰

Be More Vlad

If, like Putin, you hate not winning, pick your opponents with care. Say you’re a keen runner in your prime. Don’t just enter any run. Find one with an over-90s age category. With a small tweak of your birth certificate and a convincing grey wig, you’ll have access to a significantly weaker field of competitors. And trouncing them will be all the sweeter, knowing you were smart enough to all but guarantee your victory.

‘My cousin is friends with the brother of the drummer from Coldplay so if you want them to play at your birthday party I’m your man.’

LEVERAGE INTERMEDIARIES

Knowing people who know people lets Putin get secret business done at arm’s length. When there was an opportune moment to offer dirt on Hillary Clinton to the Trump campaign, for example, his people apparently got in touch with Uzbek crooner, Emin Agalarov, whose publicist Rob Goldstone happened to know the Trumps.¹¹ At the pop star’s request, Goldstone orchestrated a meeting at Trump Tower between a mysterious Russian lawyer and members of Trump’s shady coterie. Questions as to the level of Kremlin involvement are keeping

investigative reporters busy to this day.

Be More Vlad

If you wish to make an illicit approach to someone you really shouldn’t, it’s time to use your intermediary network. Try asking your dentist’s niece’s guitar teacher to ask the unavailable person you fancy on a date, maybe through their patent attorney. If they say yes, great, you got what you want. If it’s a no, just tell them your intermediaries got their wires crossed and you actually just wanted to borrow a dinner plate.

‘Before we start the weekly catch-up, here’s a calculator watch for each of you as a little gesture of my appreciation.’

BE MR GENEROUS

If you’re a shepherd’s son, tending to the flock in the Republic of Tuva, and you wait long enough, you may see only shooting stars. But if you’re lucky, Putin will appear out of nowhere, tanned and glittering, and give you the watch off his wrist, as happened to one lucky young farmhand when Putin visited the region in 2009.

He has a track record of handing out highly priced timepieces on a whim to grateful serfs, favouring the venerable Swiss brand Blancpain. He gave another to a millwright during a factory tour, and has thrown others into wet cement at opening ceremonies.¹²

Be More Vlad

If you’d like to demonstrate your largesse in a slightly more cost-effective manner, ask a local street hawker or loitering student if they’re interested in a mutually beneficial arrangement. For the price of a sandwich, they’ll gratefully accept a donation of a knock-off watch (to be returned later). ‘A Rolex Submariner? Thank you, oh charitable stranger,’ you can have them loudly exclaim, every single time you pass.

‘Guys, leave a few sausages in case Obama comes.’

HOLD A POWER BARBECUE

Putin loves to grill for Russia’s industrialists and oligarchs, especially when he has a message to send them.

Soon after he first took the presidency, he brought them all to Stalin’s old dacha to serve up shashlik (probably) and let them know what kind of premier he intended to be.¹³ Another time, he presided over a BBQ at his retreat in Novo-Ogaryova to advise them not to meddle in politics if they wanted to stay on his good side.¹⁴

Be More Vlad

Holding your own power barbecue could also be an effective tool if someone is trying to put the moves on your significant other.

Set up your grill at a Significant and Threatening Location. Think graveyards and derelict gas towers. The sight of you in your apron sternly burning your love rival’s sausages, and the realisation that you have not invited another soul, should be enough to scare them off for quite some time.

‘What a nice photo, it doesn’t look like you at all!’

MASTER THE BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT

‘He called me a genius,’ Trump has claimed on multiple occasions. ‘I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, okay?’

Putin’s original Russian wording was ‘яркий’ or ‘yarkii’, which can indeed be translated as brilliant. However, it only means brilliant in the sense of bright and colourful, not intelligent.

Putin was essentially calling candidate Trump ‘flamboyant’ or a ‘colourful character’. Another translation might be, ‘Oh my god, they’re actually going to elect the clown. It worked!’

Be More Vlad

If someone with unwarrantedly high self-esteem lumbers into your workplace, a well-judged backhanded compliment is a great way to cut them down to size. If they have a hide as thick as Trump’s they may not even notice, but your colleagues will silently thank you for voicing what they were all thinking.

‘If you’re worried about getting away safely after the match you can hide in the back of my car.’

SHELTER A WHISTLEBLOWER