One thing Putin has done for the United States is to provide us with an example of good government. If all you had to go on was our own last three presidents, you probably wouldn’t have any sort of an idea of what good government might look like.
Russia has a corruption problem, throughout their government, the main difference being that in Russia there's day to day bribes and payoffs of low level officials (including police).
Apart from paying off a traffic cop, I'm curious whether regular people feel corruption, or the absence of ‘rule of law’ in Russia. It may drag on their economy, and it may do so more that our system of lawyers, lobbyists, bailouts and earmarks. Not sure, but I'd call it “close”, compared to say “everyone else who's not in China, South Korea, Europe or Canada”.
That said, Putin can put on a show. He's smooth, he's astute, he tough and smart. He couldn't fly over here, campaign, and win elections in the US, but if he started his career here instead of Russia, he'd be electable here.
Truth is like you say, on the international scene, Russia's playing the game of hard choices that we both played since the end of WWII. We'd like to think we can stop, and play the good the guy, and only hang out with other good guys. There's a lot of places were there are not good guys in a position to take over and maintain order. If you don't pick a “compromise” winner, you get who you get, and right now most of them don't like us. It's the tough game of global leadership.
For Russia, the stakes are too high to have scruples (if nothing else the stakes are “fade into obscurity or become a global player”, the stakes very well could become “live in daily fear of your neighbors, or rule the world”. For us, we don't feel it anymore. We crushed Germany and the Soviets. IBM still makes the best typewriters in the world, if we just back off, everyone will come to depend on us for manufacturing and research.