Putin’s actual accomplishments are few. He dismantled democracy and muzzled the media. He constructed a fascistoid regime and perverted the very notion of truth. He marginalized the democratic opposition and, at least until recently, crushed the North Caucasus independence movements. He annexed the Crimea and doesn’t know what to do with it. He started a war in eastern Ukraine and, once again, doesn’t know what to do next. The bottom line is that Russia remains a Belgium with a bomb and a profoundly corrupt petro-state incapable of technological innovation and sustained economic growth, while having become, under Putin, a rogue state.
