I would love to hear the thoughts of this leftist community, not least any comrade in Russia. In the US it's so hard to get any serious Russia news/analysis because of the propaganda here- you have red guys that love Russia & Putin to own the libs, and you have blue guys that hate Russia & Putin because it's their favorite boogeyman. I ask because I personally don't like Putin for his war on gayness (wake me up when we get to war of gayness) but I understand that countries in the US's crosshairs are those that make their history under the least self-selected circumstances. I was looking at some stats when this question came to mind:
UA
RU
So material conditions have definitely improved under Putin, which is a miracle considering the fall of the USSR and the disgrace of Yeltsin, which makes me think there are probably people out there who like Putin for rational reasons, besides owning the libs. I would love to hear your thoughts either way.
He's a cold-blooded mafioso who cynically panders to terrible reactionary sentiments. He has more popular support in Russia than people portray it as, but that's because people portray it as being like 2% support. You are right that a lot of it was due to him being able to combat shock therapy and build Russia back up after a gutting that killed countless people and reduced many of the rest to squalor. For our part, we should not forget that he started on Yeltsin's side and only changed course based on what got him more personal power.
As another user said, if he takes radical action to support Cuba, I will become a Z poster, but I am pretty sure that he won't.
The fact the russian opposition is ass to the point Putin almost looks like a reasonable moderate compared to some of them probably helps his popularity too