Unfortunately I don't have to admit any such thing.  I hope you are right and I am wrong, but Putin's approval ratings seem to me to stem from a collective Russian inferiority complex that manifests itself in a compelling and overly romantic desire to be seen as a great nation.  Which it is of course by many measures, but politically and militarily its best days are behind it. Economically only time will tell, but what used to be its cheapest and most abundant resource, people, is now in decline and widespread maladministration has led to a squandering of natural resources.

With a declining Russian population of course the people as well as the territory of Ukraine are attractive to Putin, but only as yet more resources to be exploited, I fear.