“Whatever Putin may or may not be,”
You don’t know what he is? Have you been living under a rock?
In other words, as others have said, no matter what a person's opinion of Putin might be, Putin just told US a very important truth about our nation compared to his nation.
If that truth hurts, then GOOD!!! It should hurt! Consider it a mile marker for the road we're on.
If we, the people, take what he said to heart and then make him wrong, then we all win.
If we focus only on Putin and ignore what he said, then the Beast wins.
See how this works? The Deceiver is slick and has thousands of years of practice on humans. There's no way to win playing his game.