Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be exactly the kind of man that Donald Trump and his followers wish they could be. Putin is an authoritarian and a demagogue, who rules largely uncontested in a nation with an increasingly thin veneer of fake democracy. He imprisons, and sometimes kills, political foes and others deemed troublesome.
Putin treats his critics in the media and across civil society who do not support him as de facto enemies of the state, and suppresses free speech and human rights without apology. He is a kleptocrat and political gangster and an enemy of women's rights and freedoms, who also oppresses LGBTQ people, racial and ethnic minorities, and other groups seen as opposed to his project of restoring a Russian empire.
