The people make the culture, the culture produces the rotten government and Putin at the center. The people inevitably empower authoritarians like Putin (Lenin and Stalin didn't magically spring out of nowhere to hold the people hostage, the people made them possible, the culture made them possible, the people enabled them and joined in their revolution, militarism and statism). And certainly to the extent that there is a long-term persistence of terrible outcomes, it's absolutely clear it's the people and the related culture that are responsible. Russia isn't just unlucky to have centuries of repeated history of authoritarian leaders: it's their culture causing it, Putin represents that culture of empire and conquest (and Russia is the only major power in Europe still clinging to such ideology; the Germans, British and French for example have largely abandoned such cultural ideas). It's time for Russia to abandon that aspect of their culture, as the other great European powers have.

You'll see lots of headlines about how the West failed to curb Putin, failed to stop or confront his actions at various points. You know who overwhelmingly didn't do anything at all to try to stop him during his long dictatorship? The people of Russia. They are culpable, they are responsible (specifically those that haven't protested or made an effort against his regime, which judging by the small push-back he has faced overall throughout his dictatorship, is the extreme majority of the population). When he began shutting down free news reporting and media, and curbing human rights early into his dictatorship, did they all go into the streets and act against his regime? Did they try to stop him? No they did not, they rolled over promptly, and they didn't do anything much about him since then either. And they thoroughly enjoyed the good times during the oil price boom, no complaints about Putin then (quite the opposite). It is their fault. He has in fact been widely popular with the people of Russia for most of his time in office (not 90% popular, that's fake, but certainly majority positive typically). They liked the fake image he projected for them: power, empire, Russian strength, greatness - like the supposed old days of glory; it made them feel good again after what happened with the USSR.