The reason is also that Russia has or now had many good contacts to the general left from the time of the Soviet Union. We have a lot of German and Austrian, as well as other politicians, also from the moderate left, which ended up in Russian companies, having excellent relationships with Putin. Take the most prominent example of Gerhard Schroeder:
https://www.politico.eu/article/gerhard-schroders-office-staff-quit-over-putin-russia-ukraine-war/
He's not by any means a radical left or right, but was a rather opportunistic and Neoliberal oriented (Hartz IV etc.) Social Democrat.
Also, a lot of people, left and right, those more critical of the current "elite" and its policy in the West, even if its from different positions, know how overblown, how overwhelming the power and propaganda of the establishment in the USA and UK has become. They fighting against windmills, reasonable and rational debates became nearly impossible under this social and economic, more and more judicial pressure and persecution. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Covid otherwise, the Pandemic very clearly accelerated that trend towards a more totalitarian and suppressive stands in the West also.
So they reach out for alternatives and allies which might help them, since their own leaders and "elites" are clearly against them. And Russia was kind of smart to appeal to both sides of the more classical European political flanks, left and right. Russia had the mentioned good ties to the Left from the past and present, as well as having a more conservative and clearly "anti-woke" stance appealing to the right. Putin never really positioned himself, up to this point, clearly against one of these two classical European political positions and everything in between. He is only clearly positioned against Libertarians and Liberals, as well as the New Left, the Chimaera from the American universitites, sponsored, guided and supported by the American big capital.
Because of his careful positioning in this respect, he could appeal to both oppositions in the West and he actually directly and indirectly supported various of these groups and positions in the West.
However, he now split with his recent actions both the right and the left, moderate and extreme alike. Simply because of the brutal consequences his actions have and the massive pressure built up against him, which forces even many critical voices to shut up for the moment or being crucified by the media mafia instantly. However, he was kind of trapped into this, also. I recently heard that he had kind of contacts, practically a team in Ukraine, standing ready to be politically more active for him. But the recent propaganda efforts and covert-ops of the Ukrainian government, with support of the Western secret services and propaganda machine, were extremely successful.
Probably his actions would have been more successful if he had started already in 2014, but now it seems to late. I wonder if people get shot in Kiev by the Ukrainians if the Russians really move forward, similar to what happened to the Tsar once the "Whites" came closer in the war with the Reds. Many pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians being now under arrest as far as I know and the suppression of any pro-Russian voices in the Ukraine is massive and brutal.
They really got the upper hand ideologically and in popular support, after all those years in charge and with billions being spent in the propaganda efforts, which means, if this is true and lasting, that only the most brutal measures can keep the Ukraine down for the time being. And that is obviously against the will of most Russians, to fight a war like in Chechnya or Syria against the Ukrainians. This is where it gets really nasty and dangerous, because Putin is now almost completely isolated, only China keeps him up, he made a decision which can't be taken back, as bad as it might have been. The Western interference really cornered Russia and Putin, by no way out of the crisis, not even a solution for Crimea and the threat of a NATO membership of Ukraine in its current borders.
Now he is in this mess, and even though a lot of people want to see him going down, I think they should also consider that Putin and Russia as a whole need a way out of this. If there is no reasonable peace offer, they are likely to go in as brutally as necessary, until either the Ukrainian resistance being completely broken or the Russian people revolt, or even worse, it escalates to an international war with a potential nuclear crisis and even war. Even those which want to see Putin going down, should open up some sort of exit for him, because to corner a political leader with that kind of arsenal, especially of that arsenal of ABC weapons, might not be the best choice we got.
And its also not exactly helpful for the Ukrainians, because the maximal escalation is not in the interest of the common Ukrainian people, not at all.
