Putin is a **** no doubt but he is an honest ****, no debate with him. The second his oppo starts speaking he will pull a gun and shoot the fucker and shrug, Russia barely misses a beat and carries on as normal :-D
Russia are cunts but so is the USA, they are all after resources and strategic footholds and do the same things to get them, so do we for that matter.
That seems a good, blunt summary ha. It does feel he has more a stranglehold on the politics than a typically elected leader through various means, however this may be necessary if you need to take a state in a particular direction to avoid the next leader un-doing everything you were working towards - if it is good for the people and the world, I can't say I have a problem with that; if it's not with good intentions, it's obviously very bad. That's why I'm trying to grasp what he's actually like - he's clearly very intelligent, and I don't believe any leader can be effective without holding cards close to their chest, possibly painting themselves in false lights from time to time to justify a means.
There's clearly a lot of dodgyness in Russian matters that stems from the state, such as the case of Litvinenko, Abrahmovic/Putin (or business/state) relations and such stuff indicates. It appears the state has an agenda to remodel the world's perception of Russians also - the state funded doping and what appears to have been state encouraged hooliganism suggest trying to paint an image of a strong (or even superior) race. However, the surface of doping within sport has only been scratched, there are big suspicions western organisations try and implement the same through other tactics (inc. medical exemptions and such). Both, the USA and Russia play the same games on the world stage no doubt and as you allude to in your last sentence, it appears to be a kind of neo-imperialism game being played out - though, the USA has clearly been much more aggressive (blatant) in that aspect with their meddling in other nations. To me, Russia appears to be fighting up a hill though, at a disadvantage to the Americans in that they cannot identify anywhere near as much with the English speaking world, which may explain somewhat, their more dodgy decisions.
Also, with the rising economies of China, Brazil, India, the future (it's already started) appears to be a battle of economic spheres of influence, as things such as TTIP (USA/EU economic relations) suggests.
EDIT: Not cited but interesting excerpt from Litvinenko's wiki page (who was talking to MI6, allegedly to help tackle Russian organised crime, however still understandable he'd be assassinated) - 'During his time in London, Litvinenko wrote two books,
Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within and
Lubyanka Criminal Group, wherein he accused the
Russian secret services of staging the
Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in an effort to bring
Vladimir Putin to power. He also accused Putin of ordering the
murder in October 2006 of the Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaja.' Further interesting contrast with the USA if you believe they're capable of false flags.