I haven’t seen a single person actually praise Putin, because he has not achieved a single thing worth of defense and praise in all of the years he’s been Russia’s leader.

That’s not actually true. Putin first two terms coincided with super high oil prices which brought in a shit ton of revenue. His administration used that money to stabilize the ruble and ensure consistent payments of state wages and pensions, which for the decade prior had been totally chaotic and people were not just angry but in serious economic precarity. That alone earned him a massive amount of popular support. Basically, he presided over a decade of standard of living increases that had seemed impossible before he was elected.