i think you have it all wrong.
i doubt very many in USA,esp like on here,consider putin a good guy,friend,allie or lovable.
however,a lot of us object to sending billions of $ to a corrupt regime in a part of the world that we have NO national interest in.
many object to prodding a country with a bunch of nucs into an unnecessary life ending confrontation. anybody that gives a shit about europe,east or west,is an idiot. we have nothing to gain there and have spent many lives and many $ saving it from it's own shit pile.
russians can be bad guys? no shit. every ethnic group has developed murderous criminal groups: italians,chinese,mexican,japanese,german,irish etc.
many here are somewhat + re putin because,while doing real well for himself,he is not trying to deliberately destroy his country as opposed to our elites.
he is looking out for russia for whatever reason and seems to be pretty popular there. yea,he he will violently put down opposition like every other national "leader". same here more so every day. he is hated by the globalists because he hasn't signed on with them for whatever reasons he has.
yea,he invaded another "country" after he said he would not tolerate nato on his border. our and europe's neocons pushed it and found out he is not afraid to use force in such a setting.
russian actions in ukraine are rough. way less than japan's,germany's,china's,tribal africans' and past russian.
if you are the east europe expert you claim,what is your take on ukraine and the well documented corruption of zelinsky,biden et al there?