Of course Putin supports anyone who wants to dump NATO. He supports anyone who won't interfere with his desire to "absorb" some countries. A nationalist/isolationist won't. Riight?

Hello Rosie:

Trump/Putin - 2016...  Yeah..

excon

 Funnee hunnee but I see that too. Well, not funny funny..funny weird/bizarre/crazy! Thank you for your answer excon! :)

I'm against anything Putin, period.

Vladimir Putin has lost the plot over Ukraine, according to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
US reports said Merkel phoned Barack Obama on Sunday evening after speaking to the Russian president to press him to back down from his invasion of Ukraine and occupation of the Crimean peninsula.
"She was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. 'In another world,' she said," the New York Times reported.*

Is he good or bad?   Everything in my gut says he is not a nice dude, but that comes with a caveat.  Everything I know from him is filtered by Western media.    I'm not going to say that there's an actual plot to make him look bad, but the media in general loves to grab onto a narrative, even if it is counter to the facts at hand.  A sort of confirmation bias goes on where the news reports stories that fits the narrative and ignores the ones that don't.  In any case, the snippet I posted quoted unnamed sources.  I'm not saying they are wrong, but I take that into consideration.

With that in mind, there certainly are a lot of things that don't make Putin look all that great:
Observers Detail Fraud in Russian Election Won by Putin
Putin: Russia must "cleanse" itself of homosexuality
Russian cops violently break up Putin protest
Page on theguardian.com

The most recent On The Media podcast discusses how Putin has been deliberately playing up anti-West messages in order to pander to the nationalism of the Russian citizens and distract them from his flaws.

There also appears to be a crackdown on independent media outlets in Russia, so the ability to receive news not filtered by their government is getting harder and harder:
Russia's independent media face crackdown
Page on theguardian.com

There are certainly a lot of warning signs that he is trouble.  The crackdown on freedom of press is probably the strongest as it is a sign that civil rights are in the process of being curtailed.  Governments that actively discourage dissent and criticism leave little reason to be trusted.