Inside the mind of Putin... and why the West can never understand him: PETER HITCHENS reviews The Wizard Of The Kremlin

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BOOK OF THE WEEK

The Wizard of the Kremlin

by Giuliano da Empoli, translated by Willard 支持を得ようと努めるd?(Pushkin 圧力（をかける） £16.99, 304pp)

Nobody ever says how beautiful Moscow is. Yet I have never lived anywhere so 十分な of myth and 悪意のある glamour.

That toothless old woman in 黒人／ボイコット, standing in the December slush at the street corner with a goose for sale, might 平等に 井戸／弁護士席 sell you a handful of 魔法 beans ― and who knows what they might grow into.

In May, the evening sky is so lovely you feel you could see all the way through to the end of the universe.

There are many ４半期/4分の1s of old, low streets where the past is so 堅固に 現在の that nothing would surprise you. There are others where the 死体s of Stalin's 犠牲者s occasionally 再現する, 押し進めるing 上向きs from their shallow, 迅速な 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs beneath the balsam poplars, which the 広大な／多数の／重要な 独裁者 原因（となる）d to be 工場／植物d in their thousands.

?Giuliano da Empoli takes readers inside Putin's mind in The Wizard Of The Kremlin

The 幅の広い old roads 長，率いるing eastwards out of the city go all the way to 中国, with nothing much in between. Forget the Ural Mountains. They are not up to much anyway. This is the 辛勝する／優位 of Europe, the 辛勝する／優位 of the known world.

And in this setting begins The Wizard Of The Kremlin, a witty, mocking, clever 調書をとる／予約する about the tyrant who sits in that 広大な／多数の／重要な 塀で囲むd and turreted 要塞, horrifying the world.

I knew that Giuliano da Empoli, its author, had understood Russia when he wrote of that 'ぼんやり現れるing sense of menace that is part of Moscow's charm', 公式文書，認めるing that the best places to live in the city were 1950s 封鎖するs built by German 囚人s of war.

This is 現実に true. I lived in such a building. I knew it had been built by just such slaves, for that is what they were. And I was as thrilled as I was horrified.

He 述べるs a pitiless city, the saddest and loveliest of 皇室の 資本／首都s, where a smile is a 調印する of idiocy, where the women are as ferocious as they are beautiful (when young), where nobody knows anything, or if they do, they do not tell you, 'so you either 対処する or leave'.

Many leave. I 対処するd, for a short while, and it changed my life for ever. And this introduction to the gigantic, majestic, terrifying ロシアの 資本／首都 is just the 開始 of the door into the Kremlin, from which dark energy emanates.

In the middle of the night, after a long and worrying 運動 far into the ロシアの forest, the reader is taken straight into the presence of Vladimir Putin, and 深い into his 長，率いる.

Though this is a work of fiction, it is based very closely on reality, and I 疑問 I have anywhere seen a cleverer 描写 of the ロシアの 見解（をとる） of 力／強力にする, politics and the world, or a better explanation of how the colourless, secret police bureaucrat Putin swelled into the monstrous, fascinating thing he has become. Some western critics have （刑事）被告 da Empoli of 存在 too understanding of the ロシアの despot. He retorts that it is a novel, not a political work. He has no 義務 to lecture. And he is 権利. To understand is not to 許す or excuse. But to fail to understand, or to 辞退する to understand, is to be a fool.

Giuliano da Empoli, the author, wrote of that 'ぼんやり現れるing sense of menace that is part of Moscow's charm' (とじ込み／提出する image)

The Putin we see here comes 深い out of the ロシアの past of Ivan The Terrible and Joseph Stalin. He instinctively understands something forgotten by the West in the nearly 80 years of settled, 繁栄する peace which followed 1945 in North America and Europe, and which is now coming to a ragged but 限定された end. He しっかり掴むs what all cynics know, that 力／強力にする is distilled from 恐れる, that those who wish to （権力などを）行使する it must at least seem to be curing the ills of the nation, by 暴力／激しさ if necessary, not 妨げるing them by building better drains and spending lots of money on the NHS.

The moment at which Putin crudely snarls in public that if necessary he will kill Chechen 反逆者／反逆するs wherever he finds them, 'even in the s***house', is the moment that 当局 注ぐs into him from a ロシアの people who have longed for years for a man of 軍隊, ready to kill. They have had enough of 自由主義の 支配する, which has meant 大混乱, インフレーション, 失業 and 罪，犯罪.

From then on he has all the 力／強力にする he wants. And from then on he cannot 中止する to use it, or the people who look up to him will instead turn on him.

Those in the West who 軽蔑（する） the ロシアの people for this behaviour might wonder what the 教団 of Trump in the U.S. is all about.

Da Empoli knows mad politics rather 井戸／弁護士席. His father was gunned 負かす／撃墜する (he 生き残るd) in 1986 by the Red 旅団s, an ultra-violent far-Left 交戦的な group which terrorised Italy during the 1970s and 1980s, while da Empoli himself had a stint working for Matteo Renzi, a 過激な 改革（する）ing Italian 政治家，政治屋, 首相 of Italy from 2014 to 2016, known as 'the scrapper' or 'the wrecker'.

The main character in this 調書をとる／予約する, Vadim Baranov, is 明確に modelled on the bizarre showman and eccentric Vladislav Surkov, who was, for years, の近くに to Putin and now is not. After a （一定の）期間 as a 上級の TV (n)役員／(a)執行力のある, he was a high 公式の／役人 under Putin, 副 首相 and then 上級の 大統領の 助言者, until 20 20.

His exact birth date is unknown. He is rumoured to have worked for ロシアの 軍の 知能, the GRU, and to have written a novel under another 指名する. His critics 告発する／非難する him of squelching what was left of ロシアの freedom and of developing a technique of political showmanship and theatre which has helped Putin become an autocrat. He is now 公式に out of 力／強力にする.

In the middle of the night, after a long and worrying 運動 far into the ロシアの forest, the reader is taken straight into the presence of Vladimir Putin, and 深い into his 長，率いる

Surkov once took a 西部の人／西洋人 for lunch in Moscow and told him: 'There are two 選択s. The first is Anglo-Saxon. I give you the menu. You can choose what you want. The second 選択 is ロシアの. There is no choice. The chef chooses for you, because he knows better what you want. I 示唆する the Russia n 選択.'

It is a good 要約 of the いわゆる '君主 僕主主義' which Baranov (or is it Surkov?) 支持するs in the 調書をとる／予約する. Baranov, to begin with, is horrified by Putin's 準備完了 to use ruthless 暴力／激しさ. Putin tells him over a restaurant （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する: 'You've swallowed the Western notion that an 選挙運動 consists of two teams of 経済学者s 審議ing over a PowerPoint 文書. It doesn't work that way. In Russia, 力／強力にする is something else.'

Seen from the shadowy halls of the Kremlin, where 力／強力にする grows out of 暴力／激しさ and cruelty, and is 尊敬（する）・点d for both, we in the West live hypocritically, thinking that 力／強力にする itself is out of date and all we need are a few lawyers. 'The difference in mentality between a ロシアの and a 西部の人／西洋人 is as 広大な／多数の／重要な as that between an Earthling and a Martian.'

We also really don't care what goes on inside Russia, as long as Russia is weak. Putin (often referred to in the 調書をとる／予約する as 'the tsar') is made to say: 'If cannibals （機の）カム to 力／強力にする in Moscow, the USA would すぐに recognise them as the 合法的 政府 ― as long as they 扱う／治療するd America as the boss.'

I don't know if he ever said such a thing, but there is a lot of truth in it, 特に when you think of the squalid Yeltsin years.

Take this magical mystery 小旅行する of the Kremlin and see if it does not make you think (Putin pictured in October 2023)

If you want to know what and how ロシアのs think, this 調書をとる／予約する is a very good guide. I shivered わずかに when I read the passage in which Baranov says of ウクライナ共和国: 'What we're 目的（とする）ing for is not conquest but 大混乱. If you make the mistake of 信用ing the West, that's how it always ends. The West 減少（する）s you at the first bump in the road, and you're left all on your own to を取り引きする a 破壊するd country.'

This 調書をとる／予約する has been a 抱擁する success in フラン, where it was first published, so I have no difficulty in 説 that it せねばならない 後継する here too. But will it? The French have always been more 利益／興味d than we have in Russia, 特に after Napoleon's failed 侵略 brought swaggering ロシアの 軍隊／機動隊s to Paris. (There, famously, they shouted 'Bistro!', the ロシアの for 'quickly', at 悩ますd waiters, and so created a new French 表現).

We, unlike Parisians, are too sentimental, not 冷笑的な enough, too inclined to 注入する morality into our politics, to しっかり掴む what the ロシアのs are up to. And we barely know them. When my father served on the 軍用車隊s to Murmansk in 1943, the ロシアのs he met there might have been from another 星雲. 井戸／弁護士席, perhaps, for our own good, it is time we knew them better.

Take this magical mystery 小旅行する of the Kremlin and see if it does not make you think. And what 楽しみ is greater than that?