Putin needs strong moves to keep the country as one. There is some criticism that he is centralizing power, but in Russia, if you don't centralize power, you have the risk of losing the country.
Much of the hostility toward Putin stems from the fact that he not only defies the West when standing up for Russia's interests, he often succeeds in his defiance and goes unpunished and unrepentant.
Russia - having sat across the table from Vladimir Putin, it's pretty clear when you meet him that he has an almost limitless ambition for power. And he's been very good at acquiring it - political power, economic power, military power, territorial power.
When the Obama administration announced its 'reset' of relations with Russia in 2009, Americans never expected that it would include making Vladimir Putin the de facto U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2013.
Trump wants to be the first American tsar. With his hero worship of Putin, his admiration for the apparent omnipotence of the Kremlin, schoolboyish crush on Putin's gangster swagger and his contempt for democracy, Trump wants to rule with his family, taking decisions purely because he's right about everything like a tsar.
Putin has put Russia on a path to be a world power with global influence.
I have to say that if our global alliances are going to be alliances with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and Vladimir Putin's Russia, there is absolutely no chance of building a world-wide alliance that can deal with poverty and inequality and climate change and financial instability, and we've got to face up to that fact.