Rusinov

"Rusinov gave me advice on how to deal with threats, both real and implied. ‘What’s in here?’ people would ask. ‘Are you a tough guy or not?’ If you held your nerve and didn’t answer, they mostly just walked away. ‘There’s nothing here,’ they would say to each other, or ‘We’ve got somebody here we can miss.’"

"Andriy did not give me the advice I was expecting. ‘I’ll try to post some security guys around you subtly so you won’t see them,’ he said, ‘but you’re never going to fight fire with fire. If you get big, visible bodyguards, you’ll be gunned down in your car. If you start driving a bullet-proof car, you’ll get bombed. It will escalate and escalate. You’ve got to go in the opposite direction, play it dumb and keep a low profile. Just keep your ear to the ground and let this pass over.’ It was good advice and became the reason we never had any personal bodyguards in Russia. If somebody threatened me in a bar, I would simply hold out my mobile phone and say: ‘Hang on! Want to speak to this guy here?’, and the person would speak to Rusinov or one of the other guys. That gave me comfort, and it was the norm."

"If somebody threatened me in a bar, I would simply hold out my mobile phone and say: ‘Hang on! Want to speak to this guy here?’, and the person would speak to Rusinov or one of the other guys. That gave me comfort, and it was the norm."