There are no good guys these days.
Have there ever been 100% good guys?
Mortal beings in power have to make hard choices which if you’re running a nation will result in death of innocents
And his is a rough neighborhood of crazy Slavs and muzz and pesky Georgians and of course the Sino behemoth on his border
I’ve studied Putin a bit
His first love is Russia and her legacy and his faith he’s the best to ensure that
After the corruption of Yeltsin and weakening of her stature and the rise of the commissar oligarchs who took all the resource ministries and industries public and became billionaires overnight
He set about to reverse that and largely has
He also is a believer in Russian ethnicity and identity
He also is keen on keeping power but it’s not absolute
He loses military support he’s done
He’s actually moderate compared to those most likely to succeed him
And he or his supporters will kill you
He’s more political than military
I’m ambivalent about him but I respect that he has national and ethnic integrity at heart
So shoot me
Oh yes and we’ve broken our word via neocon uniparty machinations since he took power after Boris