"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like."
Putin is legitimately popular inside of Russia, for a multitude of reasons:
- there's no challenger in sight (which obviously is caused to a large part by any potential candidate being suppressed once they are too successful, e.g. Navalny)
- Russians - particularly those who have witnessed the events directly prior, during and after the fall of the USSR - value stability over revolutionary changes or unrest. Current Russia may not provide the level of wealth as the US or Europe, but the difference is in the eyes of many not worth the risk of repeating recent history. See also [1].
- Putin, similarly to many other Eastern European strongmen like Orban, is an expert at timing government handouts to important voter groups such as pensioners [2]
- Unlike mainland Europe or the US, there's not much of a tradition of democracy in Russia. First, you had the Tsarist monarchy, then a couple of years of civil war, then the decades of the USSR dictatorship, then a couple of years of a bit of democracy, and then at the end of 1999 Putin got into power and slowly destroyed the progress of the last eight years before.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lloyd-putin-commentary-id...
[2]: https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/putin-butters-up-rus...
Last year Putin gave each pensioner 35 roubles before elections. This is half a dollar, IIRC. A spit in the face. A few years ago, he stole from the Pension Fund.
I kind of agree with the remaining points, but we should not overestimate Putin's talents. Don't listen to commenters, just watch his interviews. Or the interviews of his crew. Start with Naryshkin. As the head of foreign intelligence he is supposed to be the smartest.