Having experienced Russia and returned and am going back again, it is my opinion that the West has no clue about it. A marvelous country with fantastic people. If you talk to those people, 9 out of 10 really like their leader. A total contrast to here in the UK and, from what I can see, Europe and the USA
Discussion
9 out of 10 people that’s a big call for a country that had an exodus of people at the start of the war
My friends and ex colleagues who live there are trapped. The Russians who don’t live there don’t say Putin’s name.
True, Russia is huge and I mainly visit just one provence, but I do believe Putin's approval rating is in the mid to high 80s. Many of the young men I have spoken to believe him to be too leniant. The West does not report both sides ofthee story. We too have state run media, BBC. Our journalists no longer exist, or at least not allowed to report anything that doesn't go with the narrative.
He’s a dictator with a disregard for human life and a track record of deceit.
Show me a democratic election and we can talk about his popularity
To be fair, for the disregard and deceit part the same could be said about the current and former US president and UK PM's like Johnson, Cameron, Blair.
And even dictators have a hard time when they have no majority support and they are pushing unpopular things like drafting into an unsupported war. If there was no popular support for him or his measures, I doubt the war could have been sustained 2 years