The scary thing is that while living in Russia, I've encountered many people with similar views (face to face).
I know it's hard to believe for western people but there are lots of people in Russia who completely obsessed with ideas of "unique Russian identity", "God chosen nation", "Russian world", "saint Russia vs. soulless American imperialism" etc.
Putin understands feelings of this part of society and successfully exploits this in order to push his own agenda. For example:
The solution, it would seem, is to help those who want to emigrate emigrate and let those who want to stay stay, and let the country slowly die on the vine.
Have you seen the population graphs for Russia[0] vs the USA[1]? It seems like one of the only developed countries (besides Japan) with a decreasing population. Seems like that is happening already.
I know it's hard to believe for western people but there are lots of people in Russia who completely obsessed with ideas of "unique Russian identity", "God chosen nation", "Russian world", "saint Russia vs. soulless American imperialism" etc.
Putin understands feelings of this part of society and successfully exploits this in order to push his own agenda. For example:
http://time.com/75484/putin-the-internet-is-a-cia-project/