As I do my own research and digging into world events --- and, mind you, I'm a busy guy with lots of other demands on my time, so I can't pretend to know anywhere close to everything about what's going on right now, let alone all of history --- I'm coming across a lot of contradictory views of Putin.
I've just watched a couple of videos from Epoch Times TV. Trevor Louden is the host a program called Counterpunch. Epoch Times, being founded as a Falun Dafa mouthpiece is vehemently anti-communist. Louden posits that sites like GAW that hail Putin as a hero, a Christian, and an anti-Nazi, anti-communist, anti-NWO crusader... we are being duped (and indeed targeted) by the Russian communist propaganda machine.
Have a look at these two videos and discuss.
This is directly discussed in one of the videos I posted. Louden's view is that Putin is only using the Orthodox church for his own political gain, and He particularly wants to court the American Christian right to support him. The anti-LGBTQ stance helps a lot with that as well, but Louden says the communists push that agenda in the West in order to weaken their cultures. They know full well how it weakens a society, so they are very much against it at home (both Russia and China). All part of their plan.