[thow-58d4e8b]

Russia in the 90s wasn't a true democracy either. US press liked to depict Yeltsin as a democrat because he was weak and subservient, but his methods of power were deeply autocratic. Yeltsin ordered artillery shelling of the parliament in 1993, killing 140 people. Had elections in 1996 been fair, they'd highly likely mean the return of the Communist Party to power, so he rigged them in all sorts of grotesque ways (naturally, western leaders praised him for it). As his incompetence grew more and more untenable, he threw the hot potato to Putin and resigned

[vkou]

This is largely accurate - and it's also worth mentioning that 90s Russia was an absolute hell-hole.

Whether people approve or disapprove of Putin, a lot of them remember what life was like before he became Tsar-for-life, and it isn't something that most of them want to tangle with again.