Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, got very little sleep today.
It was still one in the morning in Moscow, and he, recalling the tricks he had learned back when he was in charge of the House of Officers in Dresden, was sneaking through the entrance hall of a Soviet-style panel apartment block in the city of Tomsk.
There was a noise behind him.
"Vladlenych, keep it down," Putin said in a strained voice, turning around. Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, the head of the presidential administration, had never served in intelligence and was not pressing himself closely enough against the wall. Out of inexperience, he had shoved two metal canisters into the same pocket, and they had just clinked.
They came up to the right door.
"Take it out," Putin said firmly.
"Maybe we shouldn't?.." Kiriyenko mumbled. "Your approval rating is 84 percent—this seems kind of strange."
"You're an idiot, Seryoga, even if you do wear glasses. First of all, watch less television and stop repeating the nonsense you hear there. And second"—Putin understood that talking this long during an operation was unprofessional, but it seemed important to explain—"look at these faces. Look at these vicious mugs and tell me: aren't you scared, Seryozha?"
Kiriyenko looked at the crumpled photos Putin had pulled from his pocket. Alyona Khlestunova and Ksenia Fadeyeva really did fill him with terror.
"I am scared, Vladimir Vladimirovich," he whispered, barely audibly.
"Then take it out. And remember, we're doing this for the children."
Kiriyenko thought of his son, who had just been appointed a top executive at Rostelecom, and resolutely pulled out the foam canister.
"Allow me, Vladimir Vladimirovich—I'll do it myself."
Two hours later, the job was done.
The door to the apartment of Khlestunova—the coordinator of Alexei Navalny's campaign office in Tomsk—had been tightly sealed with construction foam.
The door lock too.
It was not easy for campaign staffer Fadeyeva to get out of her apartment either:
"And she won't be able to go anywhere at all," Kiriyenko trilled in a thin voice while resting after the "job" at a safe house.
Vladimir Putin smirked with satisfaction. It may have been a sleepless night, but he had done the job, preserved order in the country, and even given Vladlenych a master class.
"And you were talking about an 84 percent approval rating," Putin chuckled. "Where do they even find people as naive as you?"
That is the story of what happened this morning in the city of Tomsk, where we are opening another campaign office today.
Join us, friends. We do not want the country to be ruled by this kind of trash with nails and foam.
We have enough support from the people, and we do not need to wall anyone up inside their apartments.
On our side are the especially dangerous Khlestunova and Fadeyeva.