Why, I wonder, was Boris Yeltsin, one of Russia's most disastrous leaders ever, so cherished and lionised in the west as a "hero" and "giant: of the 20th century and a beacon of "freedom'"
The Yeltsin many Russians will remember was rather different. A drunken opportunist who immeasurably impoverished much of his country while fantastically enriching his clique. A president who robbed an entire generation of their pensions, put living standards into free-fall and knocked decades off Russian male life expectancy, making it the lowest in the developed world, beginning a process of depopulation of Mother Russia that continues to this day. A man who started his populist career campaigning against the relatively small-time corruption of party bosses and then presided over an era of corruption and gangsterism so vast it is without historical precedent.
Perhaps, then, he is held in such high regard in the west because he was the man who buried communism and this effaces all his misdeeds? Well, yes and no. Leaving aside that communism largely imploded under the weight of its own contradictions rather than the weight of Boris on a tank, it's clear that if Yeltsin had succeeded in overthrowing communism but instead of drunken chaos and impotence had built on its ruins a strong Russia that defended its own interests and was a powerful force on the world stage his reputation in the west would be very different and he would be attacked by some of the very same people he is now championed by. He'd be almost as reviled as ... Putin!
The reason he is regarded so highly in the west is the same reason why he is loathed in Russia: he was the best president of Russia the west ever had. Not only was he craven towards western interests but he supervised the near total destruction of his country as a political and military force in the world. He ploughed Russia into the earth for us so we didn't have to do it ourselves.
Yes, it would have been nice if the Russian economy had flourished after communism and the Russian people hadn't had to suffer so much but if the price of removing a serious rival from the world stage and gaining access to her vast and strategically vital natural resources was the degradation and emiseration of an entire nation, save a lucky few lottery winners and gangsters, then, well, that's a price that's well worth them paying, isn't it?
Putin is hated as much in the west as Yeltsin is revered not because he is anti-democratic (Yeltsin was anti-democratic too when it suited him) but because he has rebuilt the Russian state, Russian power, Russian self-respect and isn't afraid to assert Russian interests.
The UK is home to those plotting oligarchs who believe that Russia is just part of their property portfolio, not just because we have expensive restaurants and good private security companies but because we were one of the main architects of the anarchy that made them insanely rich. Putin may have been Yeltsin's anointed heir (at the price of granting him immunity from prosecution), but he turned out to be something of a patriot, turning on the powerful oligarchy which had really run Russia while Yeltsin fiddled. This is why he is so popular in Russia and why exiled oligarchs bragging about their coup plans only make him more popular.
The dramatic rise in Russophobia in the west in recent years is less about liberal anxiety over Moscow's authoritarianism than naked self-interest: the west has woken up to the fact that the Russian bear is still alive, despite our best attempt to poison him with Yeltsin 210 in the 1990s, and he wants his gas and oil back, spassiba.