Well I choose to look at a country based on their citizens.....Russian people could not have just jumped into Democracy because outside leaders wanted that..... and Putin knew that as any did who understand Russian culture.
BTW....I know exactly how Putin came to power from the get go. But you might want to also consider how Biden came to power.
Biden came to power by the most massive election fraud ever. He and his son both belong in jail with the key thrown away. But Putin is still a KGB killer; a mass murderer.
If you want to know what the crazy reckless KGB was capable of, I recommend the book “Red Star Rogue”. After reading it it seems to me very likely that in March 1968 the KGB commandeered a Soviet missile sub and tried to blow up Honolulu and make it look like China did it. Fortunately(!) a fail safe device on the missile caused it to explode on launch due to lack of a code, and the K129 submarine went to the bottom of the Pacific. The Soviet Navy initially thought we sank their sub, and apparently retaliated by sinking the USS Scorpion in May. In December DIA analysis of 20,000+ photos of the K129 on the bottom of the Pacific taken by the USS Halibut, proved the K129 sank while attempting to launch a missile. Nixon used that information to launch his (we now know disastrous) opening to China, and his less disastrous SALT treaties with the USSR.
It’s really hard for normal people to fathom the evil of men like Yuri Andropov, Vlad Putin, and Xi Jinping. Mass murder was and is just another normal political tool to them.