Marius Vizer knows his way around with sports fans, gas suppliers, judo value promoters and warlords.
Vizer, the world's top judoka, was already friends with Vladimir Putin, for example, when Gerhard Schröder was still digging pipelines in the Jusos sandbox.
Approximately.
Vice President Putin had to reluctantly send back his honorary presidency of the International Judo Federation IJF because the Kremlin allows people to murder and plunder in Ukraine.
Russian sports soldiers with judo belts can rely on Vizer for this: while their comrades bomb children to death, they can continue to walk on the IJF mats.
But: Marius Vizer pulls the strings and not the belt tighter.
What gas is to Europeans, coal is to sports officials.
Good that Vizer still has a sports friend, gas supplier, judo values promoter and warlord up his sleeve.
Vizer flew to Baku last week and met Ilham Aliyev.
Azerbaijan's absolute ruler got the honey smeared into his mustache that Putin had left over all these years.
Or as they wrote at the IJF: "The exchange of the two presidents will certainly promote the true values of judo in Azerbaijan so that they shine on the international stage." The shoe pinches?
Judo stays barefoot.
And Vizer naked.