Aside from being ruthless like a Bond villain, he is also one smart ruskie.
Putin is a murdering thug and a gluttonous pig. Nothing smart about that. His run as leader of the Russian kleptocracy has been a disaster for the Russian people. The wealth of the nation has been stolen. Those who opposes this thievery are arrested, jailed or murdered.
The designation of “smart” doesn’t denote admiration. He is smart in the same way the head of an organized crime family can be.
An objective assessment is not meant to be complimentary. Rather, people in the US sometime get blinded by our moral code that we fail to see our enemy’s strengths.
My view of him is that of a very cunning and dangerous animal—not one that will attack you head on, but who will probe and retreat until the weakness is found.
And our weakness plays a lot of golf.