According to David Ignatius of the Washington Post,

To explain the Putin phenomenon, the Kremlin’s chief ideologue, Vladislav Surkov, recently compared him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, another president who brought his country back from economic disaster and restored its pride. Like FDR, Putin is using “presidential power to the maximum degree for the sake of overcoming the crisis,” Surkov said.

Inasmuch as FDR’s economic policies were a failure until after World War II, let’s hope that Putin and Surkov aren’t planning to emulate him too closely.