Putinism still seems to work ouy better for the Russians than Communism or Yeltsinism - maybe even better than Romanovism was for the Russians.
Putin’s success was largely based on the very high cost of oil. Anyone could have been successful with that price, as we see all over the world. But let’s see how much success he has now as the price drops lower and lower, especially when he’s trying to modernize his military to overtake the West’s technical advantages. The military issue matters because Putin has taken Russia back to its Imperial ambitions. It’s also matters because it’s a big waste of money, like so much of what Putin does it benefits his cronies and his constituents but not most Russians. Facing no threats from the West beyond peaceful differences, Russia has no reason to spend so much on defense. Yet having started the process, defense spending will come before social spending. If Russians were close to parity with the West for standard of living and under threat, spending so much on the military might make some sense. Putin is turning Russia into a poor country again in much the same way that Venezuela turned from easily achieved success to failure.
With all its drawbacks Putin's Russia is a functional state, and the Yeltsyn's one is chaos.