Hangarshuffle, most of my Russian friends like Putin, they think he is great.
On the whole I don't see he or his government are any worse than ours, at the end of the day its the US, UK and now France also who tend to mostly go around the world invading and bombing places, toppling governments and regimes as we please. Plus with his KGB/FSB background he has got to be more switched on than most/all western politicians.
I agree with your points about the British military though, our politicians must be mad, they use the military more and more but at the same time have cut, cut and cut! I think the wars were mostly mistakes and have done no good and in many cases made things worse, but to send our military to war and to keep cutting it at the same time is total insanity!