The most effective PR move Putin ever did was to finance “global warming” activists in the West. That has certainly helped reduce western competition for oil and gas. But that was not an effort Russia ever admitted to, or ever tried to use to burnish its image among such factions in the West.
This was a strictly operational, unfriendly move vs western countries, that nobody on either side wants to openly admit to, because it would embarrass “greens” in the West, by association, and expose Russia as hypocritical.
The only people who care about what the pinhead Watermelons [Green on the outside, Red on the inside] think are the dupes.