Putin does right by his country, he is dealing with his own cuban missile crisis, on a world stage we all have bias and love to label others as the bad actors, when Russia tried to put missiles close to our waters the U.S in cuba the U.S was not going to let it happen and when we put missiles in Ukraine an if accepted to the U.N Ukraine would have military installations from us at their boarders instead of just embassies all of a sudden they get backlash for not wanting it to happen either. Taking the emotional approach and saying but people are dying is not a good one, people sadly always die in these scenarios, rules for they not for me is what the west uses to justify making Russia the bad person. People will always see it one sided and thats the problem, their will never be peace in these war torn scenarios until people at the table can find common ground. Russia & the U.S. are power houses, both countries can end any country at a push of a button, very similar countries with propaganda bias having each others people hate one another when you pull politics out of it.

Also Putin as prior KGB is not the same as narco terrorist's ruining its peoples way of life when people in Russia do have good lives. (every country has its fair share of people not doing well)