Add to this the failing of the Russian social safety net. The public were accustomed to the idea that if they would seldom experience much luxury, they would never starve or go homeless.

But starve and land on the street they did in the Yeltsin era. Even as the oligarchs feasted, many ordinary people suffered worse than under the Soviet regime.

The middle class was rising, but not fast enough. At perhaps the worst extreme, children literally sold themselves for sex at Leningrad station in Moscow — just to buy food.

Putin did not have a very difficult time connecting this suffering in the public imagination to the fall of of Soviet and Russian predominance on the global stage.

When he promised a return to former glories, people believed him because they needed to believe in something.

As a populist, he leveraged patriotism very successfully. The Russian people rewarded him for keeping at least some of his promises by cracking down on the worst excesses of the Yeltsin era.

Many in the West see Putin as a classic dictator who maintains power by authoritarian means. While he certainly is a dictator, people would do well to understand that he has been enormously popular and remains very popular even if public support has eroded somewhat.