President Vladimir Putin's annual news conference last Thursday lasted three hours and 11 minutes and didn't produce much in the way of news, with the possible exception of his praise for Donald Trump and his semi-admission that Russian servicemen are involved in the war in eastern Ukraine. Something else made the spectacle worth watching: Putin gave the clearest display in years of how he splits the world into friends and loyal allies on one side, and enemies and those who only deserve to be manipulated on the other.

Early in the press conference, Putin was asked if he planned any changes to the government. His reply, basically: "No, you know, in the rather long time that I've been working one could probably notice that I am very protective of people."

That's true. He often has favored and rarely moved to replace bureaucrats who have worked with him for a long time. He's also been good to businesspeople he's known since his Leningrad childhood. That's an important part of his code — he is loyal to those who are loyal to him. In the 2000 book of interviews "First Person," Putin said that people "express themselves through friends." He recalled that as a senior official he kept up a correspondence with his friends in the former East German secret police, Stasi, even after they were disgraced in Germany. Asked if he'd ever been betrayed, Putin was silent, then said, "No. Friends haven't betrayed me."