Vladimir Putin's invisible empire

The Cold War involved puppet leaders and an old-style empire that was so expensive to maintain that it eventually brought down the Soviet Union. Putin doesn’t have puppets, but he does have buddies – politicians, usually in need of loans, who want to shake things up. 

Take Marine Le Pen. She was in Russia last autumn and soon afterwards her National Front secured a €9 million loan from the First Czech Russian bank. She is still leading the polls for the French presidential election – if she wins, she’d be a powerful ally for the Kremlin.

Putin is growing quite good at spotting winners. He has long admired Syriza, the far-Left Greek party which was calling for withdrawal from Nato two years ago .... http://www.telegraph.co.uk