As to the last sentence of your reply, I am not certain Putin answers to his own countrymen, much less the rest of the world.
He is Stalin minus the mustache in viewpoint.
As Mr. Edd I believe it was said yesterday, when Putin is gone they will replace him with someone just like him.
Soviet doctrine hasn’t changed since the days of Stalin. They only have one line of clones for leader, they all are just like Putin. Russians tried a little democracy for a couple of years, it was snuffed out by the Russian Thugacracy and that isn’t likely to change. Anyone who gets Russians talking of democracy these days is soon counting magic fairies in an asylum.
Putin is not going to die of old age, like all thug kings he will at some point piss the other thugs in the Thugacracy off bad enough and he will have a sudden heart attack and be forgotten. The other thugs in the halls of power will divide his plunder and move on with Stalin/Putin ver.10.2.01
Any loyalty Russians have is to each their own best interests. Putin’s quarterly payola payments must take hours to read through.