This is YUGE amounts of winning. Having a competitor and potential enemy indebted to you for having saved the lives of his countrymen? Well played, Mr. Trump.
Yes you need to look up the damage Sanctions have had on the Western bank accounts of Putin’s crony oligarchs and the anger of average Russians over their stagnating economy to understand why Putin is being extra nice.
Also worth nothing Russia’s upcoming “elections” (in quotation marks for a reason) are in March!
You should also note: that cynicism in Russia is so high right now over their lack of political options - when the terrorist attack happened in St. Petersburg last April, Russians thought it could have been timed by Putin himself following a string of protest movements a few weeks before...that it was Putin’s way of keeping them in line with fear. “You need me, or else.”
This is how some view several attacks that happened in the early 2000s in apartment buildings in Moscow and elsewhere...some of them were never fully explained.
Are these conpsiracies the equivalent to crazy 9/11 truthers? Perhaps. And even 9/11 trutherism has sway among many Russians as well.