I see Putin as a transitionary figure.
Russia wasn’t quite ready for American-style Democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union, it just simply is not a concept in their political DNA.
It will take generations for the Russian people to overcome 70+ years of centralized Bolshevik rule, and centuries of Czarist rule before that.
But the alternative to someone like Putin, is political chaos, as in Italy.
Russians have no history of democratic government. None at all. It’s always been an authoritarian culture.