Love him or not, Putin is trying to walk the really fine line between the Communist past and the capitalist future. People forget that the Person of the Year award is for the most influential person of the year, for better or worse.
I agree with you that the Person of the Year award is for the most influential person of the year, for better or worse.
My argument with Time Magazine is that it was "for an extraordinary feat of leadership in taking a country that was in chaos and bringing it stability."
They forfeited lots of liberty to achieve that stability.