I don't profess to be an expert on the history of Eastern Europe. It is clear, however, that Vladimir Putin is motivated by some nationalism, some political vendetta-ism, and some need to keep that "warm water port" that we all learned in high school was so important to the Soviets (at least those of us over a certain age).
And while the right's praise of Putin's "decisiveness" and conservative tendancies seem incongruous, they are not. In fact, the American right has a history of praising the same dictators they have a history of claiming to patriotically be against.
John Dean (he of Watergate fame) once wrote a book - the title escapes me - that focused on a tendancy of the Republican party to attract people who would blindly follow a Republican no matter how extreme they would be. That cult-like obsession has been around for quite some time.
Now I am not comparing Putin to Hitler (Idi Amin and Pol Pot weren't like Hitler either) - but back in the 1930's - before Hitler invaded or annexed anything - the Republican party just loved him. The editorial pages of the Chicago Tribune famously praised Hitler for righting the German economy, creating some stability and "making the trains run on time."
In some quarters of the American right, they were still arguing about staying out of the war or even getting in on Germany's side - until the day the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor.
We shouldn't be surprised. It's not about the same scale of morality or real politik that we often say stops domestic politics at the water's edge. Then and now, the GOP has had factions of extreme conservatives that are - frankly - obsessive and cult-like. What else would possess large groups of people to believe conspiratorial arguments that are - frankly - so impossible that you cannot even fathom a wild scenario that would make them true (hello, birthers!).
Or, how about the idea that if you cannot stop gay rights here, you can go to Africa and play with governments to stop them there (never mind spreading democracy around the world).
For many on the far right, the world is remarkably black and white. Sometimes it jives with overall American-type values (look at John McCain trying to declare war everytime somebody fires a shot at somebody else), and sometimes - well - it just isn't aligned with anything within the mainstream left-right political curve at all. So, in this case, Vladimir's Pooty invaded the sovereign territory of another nation, but that's all right, because he supports the virulent anti-gay positions this segment of the right takes - and that's more important to them.
It's also what makes them doomed to loose national elections - because it's just ridiculous.