US-Russia Helsinki summit: Trump and Putin – new best friends

Vladimir Lenin’s “useful idiots” were the Western intellectuals invited to the Soviet Union to witness and tell the world about the wonders of the worker’s utopia, which they obligingly did while turning a blind eye to the forced labour camps, the suppression of all political opposition, the destruction of Russia’s agriculture, and a working-class stripped of all power and rights.

Mr Putin is not Lenin, but he does run a corrupt, crony-ridden and authoritarian regime that uses the criminal law to keep his political rivals in prison or just quiet, and he understands the power of sport in winning friends and influencing people.