Yes, what a spectacular failure Putin has become. He has upset so many democrats, and they do not like him at all, even less so than they used to. All he got for it was control of the next US president, control over Syria, territorial control of Crimea and the imminent removal on sanctions on his government.
He's playing checkers, while the US gov is obviously playing chess. Soon they will put his queen in check.
LOL, yeah that guy demonstrates the myopia of Americans, who act like only their opinion matters.
But also, while Putin has managed with the hand he's been given, Obama and the EU gave him that hand. IE, talk of NATO membership for Ukraine was fking with Putin and kept him distracted from other issues. If you're not on offense, you're on defense. You can imagine in another arrangement how it could be a problem if Putin were verging on an alliance with Germany, and talk were of Germany leaving NATO.
So on that grounds it might make sense, because otherwise he'd be threatening the balance of power in Europe.
Right now with Putin as the boogeyman, Europe stays united. NATO's express purpose was to keep the French and Germans allied, the Germans down, and the Russians out. The French opposed the uniting of Germany. You can imagine that in an alternate universe you might see tensions rising between Germany and France again.