Fear is not the first emotion that comes to mind when thinking about leaders like Vladimir Putin. Anger, defiance, or contempt – those are more like it. There are neuropsychological and semantic reasons for that: some emotions ‘want’ to be expressed. Anger, for example, fulfils an important function in communicating that a red line has been crossed (van Kleef et al. 2008: 16f). A deeper look into contemporary affective science suggests that all emotions have physiological manifestations.