En particular en vista de la experiencia del Iraq, Putin ha conseguido un importante apoyo público al sostener que la oposición al fomento de la democracia occidental no es una resistencia a la democracia misma, sino a la intervención occidental contra la "democracia soberana" rusa.
Especially in view of the Iraq experience, Putin has won substantial public sympathy by arguing that opposition to Western democracy promotion is resistance not to democracy itself, but to Western intervention against Russian “sovereign democracy.”