He actually makes my panties wet

[alcatel]

I have had plenty of arguments in the pub with 1 customer in particular who blames all on the yanks, the brits and the French and argues that all we see is anti-Russian propaganda. Last week his argument was that America bombed Aleppo. Usually avoid politics in the pub but seriously some people talk pure shite :-(.

Afaik Russians tend to be somewhat suspicious of the motives of westerners and (especially older ones) had bad experiences of free market capitalism and the type of 'democracy' they had with Yeltsin (they lost the sureties of communism) Putin exploited these things. He also gained kudos by crushing Chechan separatists in a nasty war.
But what he has done is just return Russia to lts usual authoritarian rule whether Tsarist, communist or the latest version under his hegemony