didn't say he wasn't an authoritarian strongman. I said he tries to advance his nation's/people's interests.
Do you even understand what that means?
It depends on what you consider as nation's/people's interests. If building a corrupt system of power with pocket oligarchs and billions of dollars flowing abroad annually can be called that, than yes, he has made great achievements in that.
In fact, the Russians never lived better than in the era of Putin's rule.
The 'gold years' of Brezhnev's rule werent too bad in this regard, either.
In narrow meaning of the 'gold years' - (VIII-th five-year plan) 1966-1970 were pretty nice, but not even close to the current level of consumption:
- almost no tropical fruits, good alcohol, little amount of good tobacco, tea and coffee.
- little quantity of cars, TVs and other gadgets.
- not sufficient amount of houses.
- no international tourism.