I think that Vladimir Putin is certainly getting a lot of publicity for what the Russians are doing. And I'm not sure that's unwelcome to him. I think this is a guy who saw the U. S. basically come out against him in his reelection campaign in 2012. He saw the U. S. being behind all of the color revolutions in Eastern Europe and in Georgia and Ukraine and so on. So his view is the West has been interfering in his politics for years.
If men had been forbidden to make porridge of camel's dung, they would have done it, saying that they would not have been forbidden to do it unless there had been some good in it.