1. Putin at his inauguration ceremony in May 2012.

2. Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.

3. Nikolai Patrushev, Security Council secretary and foreign-policy hawk. Not a man to smile if he can glower instead.

4. Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s boss and Putin’s multipurpose hard man over many years.

5. Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Affairs Minister, who puts the gloss on Putin’s external initiatives.

6. Alexei Kudrin, long-term Finance Minister, friend of Putin and subsequently a permitted critic of official economic policy.

7. Vladislav Surkov, one-time manipulator of multiparty politics on Putin’s behalf. Now his emissary in eastern Ukraine.

8. Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainian president until 2014 and a flagrant accumulator of personal wealth through office.

9. Yevgeni Primakov, failed contender for the Russian presidency in 2000 and an early promoter of ‘multipolarity’ in world affairs.

10. Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin’s earliest prime minister and subsequently one of his fiercest critics.

11. Boris Nemtsov, unrelenting political enemy of Putin until he was assassinated in 2015.

12. Alexei Navalny, leading current critic of the Putin administration.

13. ‘March of Millions’ protest poster, Moscow, June 2012: ‘We’re fed up with the scoundrels and thieves’.

14. Opposition giant puppet model of Putin as footballer for the Party of Scoundrels and Thieves – Nemtsov’s name for Putin and his entourage.

15. Navalny on stage at an evening rally during his Moscow mayoral campaign, August 2012.

16. Pussy Riot release-demand poster, 2012. They were released the following year, shortly before the Sochi Olympics.