The trick is to have your influence prevail beyond your body. To be influential during your lifespan and then to lost influence right after that as soon as your body dies or as soon as you are displaced from the high office is not satisfying. These guys like Putin work by instinct to perpetuate their influence beyond their bodies. He is working for long ranged influence so that even after losing the body, his ideas will prevail and also people will consult him in the astral world hereafter on how to keep governing using his principles. One does not have to be aware of reincarnation to do this. If one has it as an instinct one will do it, all by the grace of one's kundalini and also by the grace of material nature, who has the materialistic entities as her favorites.