I'm thinking both sides primary thinking is that they profoundly dislike the establishment of powers in 'the west', and that they are therefore happy to distort their minds to support whoever challenges that - in this case Putin. Cause ideologically, Putin is far on the right, there is absolutely nothing for a leftist to like (except if you didn't notice that the USSR was disbanded).In Greece, it is a surprise that the far left supports Putin the fascist and nationalist! For many years now, people were saying that the far left and the far right are practically the same thing. I couldn't believe it, but now it seems more and more reasonable. Putin has nothing to do with a socialist ideology, so why does the left support him?