The Russian mother of someone I know here in LA has pictures of Putin all over her house. I'm fully aware this is anecdotal, but by every metric, Putin is a popular guy within Russia. He's also probably unfairly demonized by the West, so our view of him is skewed.
Many Russians supporting him believe that he re-asserted Russia's influence in the world, and see Donbass and Georgia in a positive light. My grandfather is one of them. (Although he has soured on Putin himself, over the past few years. Reminds him too much of Stalin.)
I'd like to take a moment to point out that the people of any empire often see it's imperial ambitions in a positive light.
Dig just a bit, and you'll find Americans who thought Vietnam was a good idea, Frenchmen who thought Algiers was a good idea, Brits with Ireland and India, Argentinians with the Falklands, etc, etc, etc. They've all got a list of excuses as long as your arm for why they think so, and so do the Russians.
That's fair demonization. But we in the West have no issue looking past assassinations, electoral interference, coups d'états, and invasions far past what even Putin has done.
That being said, I still think Putin is an evil man. I just don't think he's really worse than, say, Bush, and I can understand while I massively disagree why so many Russians like him.
> we in the West have no issue looking past [...]"
Au contraire, Bush is widely panned across the West, trust in or respect to the CIA is at an all time low, and most educated westerners acknowledge those examples as having been terrible ideas.
Maybe he is in your circles, he is in mine. Bush won reelection after doing all of those things, though, and even liberal media outlets began to rehabilitate him recently - see the whole Bush painting atrocity. Putin isn't universally liked in Russia either.
