When the president asked Oleg to come with him to a G20 summit, Oleg had, of course, said yes. What else was he to do? Marina was angry with him, though, complaining bitterly that he was never home anymore, that he was neglecting his family, that he was neglecting her. In a rare flash of rage, he slapped her across the face, driving her to the floor. “Why don’t you go shopping,” he fumed.
This was not like him. But rather than apologize, he packed his suitcase and headed outside to the car waiting to take him to the airport. Despite smoking half a pack on the way, he was still shaken by the fight with his wife as he boarded the plane. He was shaken further when Luganov told him to write him a speech that would dazzle the leaders of the Western powers. The president wanted to make a forceful denunciation of all nuclear and ballistic missile programs of the regime in Pyongyang, including a powerful argument for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Oleg had never written a speech before. He wasn’t sure he could now. He agreed reluctantly. The position Luganov had outlined was one Oleg privately but heartily held, so it would not be difficult for him to make that case. What gnawed at him was the knowledge that he had just been commissioned to draft a speech explicitly designed to camouflage the president’s true position. The man was, after all, actively if clandestinely aiding Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, not seeking to bring them to a halt.
Two months later, Luganov asked Oleg to travel with him to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, Jerusalem, and Ramallah. The president’s trust in him was growing. But so were the tensions between Oleg and Marina. They did their best not to fight in front of Vasily, but the bitter realities of life in this pressure cooker were having a demonstrative and corrosive effect on their marriage. Oleg wondered if the only way to rekindle their love would be for him to stop working for the president and go back to life as a private-sector lawyer, far from the daily pressures inside the Kremlin. But he couldn’t see a way out. To be sure, his moral revulsion was growing, slowly but steadily. Yet there was also something intoxicating about being so close to the vortex of power.
There were days Oleg resolved to resign and take Marina and Vasily to another city or country to start afresh. Yet he never acted upon such instincts, and then he hated himself for his lack of courage. It was a vicious cycle of revulsion and regret mixed with approbation and advancement, and it was all wreaking havoc on his digestive system. He was having trouble eating certain foods. He was having trouble getting enough rest at night. In time he began battling heartburn and then colitis. Yet it was easier to change his diet and take a growing handful of pharmaceuticals than to confront his wife, much less her father, and take an exit ramp off this road.
Soon Oleg Kraskin was not simply taking notes but drafting Luganov’s speeches, statements, and various other official communiqués. He was also getting an inside look at how the Russian leader wielded power. With the Arab leaders, Luganov offered state-of-the-art weaponry, financing to build nuclear power plants, and muscular political support for their pet issues at the United Nations. Without being so explicit, he was wooing the Arabs away from Washington and back into Moscow’s camp, where they’d been during the Cold War. Oleg had to admit, if only to himself, it was a supremely seductive performance.
To the Jews in Israel, Luganov portrayed himself as a man of peace, a fair and balanced interlocutor capable of bringing the Arabs to the table to make a sweeping and comprehensive peace treaty. But all this was a smoke screen, Oleg knew. Luganov’s actual objectives were twofold. The first was to lull the Zionists into a false sense of security while the president earned billions in payoffs from Russian oligarchs arming Israel’s enemies. The second was to entice them to let Russian companies invest in the massive fields of natural gas recently discovered off the Israeli coast, even as he secretly plotted to disrupt or even destroy those projects. The whole performance was both distressing and breathtaking to behold. Oleg was constantly amazed that such rank dissembling could prove so utterly effective.
Six weeks after the Middle East trip, the two men were jetting off to Berlin, Paris, and Rome. Oleg sat spellbound watching the president wine and dine the highest-ranking European political and business leaders, concluding one lucrative joint venture after another, each crafted in such a way that personally—if always covertly—enriched Luganov. As always, Oleg was in charge of drafting letters and memos on behalf of the president to world leaders and to key figures throughout Russia.
By the end of 2012, Oleg was unexpectedly awarded a promotion and a new title: counselor to the president. With it, he received a sizable bonus and a hefty pay raise—far too hefty for Oleg, as it happened. He was convinced it was dirty money. But he asked no questions, and Marina was thrilled because her father insisted the couple take a few weeks of well-deserved vacation. Frankly, Oleg hadn’t seen his wife this happy—or happy at all—in quite some time. She asked if they could go to Monte Carlo for old times’ sake, just the two of them. Oleg was touched by the request and quickly made the arrangements. His parents agreed to watch Vasily. Marina and Oleg flew first class. They ate at fancy restaurants. They danced in nightclubs. Marina spent far too much money shopping. Oleg lost far too much money at the blackjack tables and roulette wheels. It wasn’t quite the same as their honeymoon in Macau, but it was almost as good, and when they got home, they discovered Marina was pregnant again. Oleg hoped this could be the start of a new chapter in both of their lives.
Sadly, however, Marina lost the baby four months later and developed an infection that nearly took her life. Oleg was away on another foreign trip when she was rushed to the hospital. It was all over by the time he returned to Moscow. Though she never said as much, Oleg was convinced she blamed him somehow. Though he never said as much, he blamed her father, for now the president rarely moved without Oleg at his side.
Aside from putting a further strain on an already-troubled marriage, Oleg’s rising prominence in the president’s inner circle began drawing the growing attention of the Russian media. Oleg discouraged all of it. He never returned reporters’ calls. He never issued public statements or responded to requests for interviews or profiles. Yet this hardly dissuaded the press from writing about him. To the contrary, Oleg’s caginess only created more mystery around him and his rising influence in his father-in-law’s administration, which led, in turn, to more column inches.
At one point, a front-page profile in one of Moscow’s most-read daily papers described Oleg as Luganov’s nadezhnyy sovetnik, or “trusted advisor.” Oleg went pale when he first read the story, certain it would infuriate the very man whose trust he most needed and valued. But Luganov loved the story, even with all its factual inaccuracies, and began describing his son-in-law as his nadezhnyy sovetnik to everyone he met.
Yet even as Oleg’s stature inside the Kremlin was growing, so was his disquietude. While Marina embraced the astonishing wealth her father was amassing, Oleg knew the president’s official annual salary was only $137,000. To shepherd a nation was one thing. To fleece the flock was quite another. And Oleg continued to see a steady stream of Luganov’s political rivals and potential rivals heading for prison or at least under indictment on charges that seemed unsupported by evidence.