Since Russians do not visit GenChat, I guess I have to speak on their behalf, being of Slavic origin.

Putin is a shrewd politician and he basically outsmarted all his global peers. Yes, he has a serious propaganda (RT, Sputnik, trolls, etc) but that is something that all other leaders already have.

People around him are more or less his university, even high school buddies from St. Peterburg, and they either control oil, gas and other natural resources, secret service/army or the IT which is rising over there.

Putin manages 2 very different parties within Russia: conservative-panslavic and liberal, which is more or less somehow connected to the Western power circles, bankers etc.

The thing with Russia is the prevalence of oil export in their economy, not only does it cause problems when prices are low - it makes their middle-class lazy when the prices are high (cause oil makes easy money), as it was when the US went after Saddam and Bin Laden. Only in the last decade, when those sanctions were imposed, did certain people within Russia realize that this country can basically monopolize world's wheat production, or that its AI products are up to par with global high-end.

Secondly, Russia was an empire, just like the UK or Turkey, but tzarist empire never had a real parliament, even old slavic states had more democracy and organized voting prior to the rise of Kiev and Moscow. That means that an ordinary Russian out there does not care about 'democracy', he cares only for stability and that's it. Russia's death toll after WW2 was unbeleivable, so it is normal thing for a Russian to also hope for security through strong leadership and army. The 90's were terrible, as Yeltsin, not only being an alcoholic, was also a corrupt pawn. Younger generations have more or less similar standpoints as the ones living in Turkey, for example, but Russia has had constant pressure coming from the West for like 200 years, which makes their reality totally different.

Putin is a realist, which is probably his greatest virtue - but he made mistakes:

1. Ukraine: Even though 50% this country is Russian speaking, and total majority of its population being somehow connected to Russia, Putin failed to keep it within Russian orbit, and now there are nazi parties there, uncontrolled militias and the entire country became a failed state.

2. Montenegro: Allthough totally irelevant by size, it was Russia's old ally in the Balkans until it became a member of NATO (without referendum, with even Trump opposing), meaning that Russia lost its only safe haven in the Adriatic sea.

But of course, his propaganda stops ppl from seeing all the facts.