Putin is an autocrat in midset just like Erdogan and their huge popularity is due to impressive PR campaigns and the fact that they can sell law&order, bread& circuses and stability. They can play sports and be "sexy".
The same tactics are also used in the west however, from Merklel's popularity skyrocketing after Germany's world cup win and her participating there, to (much more seriously) Bush and co's use of western media to start 2 wars and defy international law until this day.
Yes, there is a dangerous nationalist/czarist atmosphere in Russia and the seperatists which seems to only get worse, but completely ignoring the fact that fascists are indeed acting without control in Ukraike and there are attempts to outlaw certain parties only points to hypocricy. Not to mention that the will of eastern Ukraine citizens is deemed irrelevant.