It has to be a democracy of some kind with independent courts, a benevolent dictator won't do, once he's gone, who replaces him? Not many Russians are against the will of the people, they've been running a sham democracy for a long time, even the Soviet Union had "elections". They have the form of democracy, but not the substance now, the ruling party is popular because there are no alternatives, they are dead or in prison. No open and free media, if there were, a fluent Russian speaker like Zelenskiy (former Russian TV celebrity) would have destroyed Vlad in his own back yard on TV after a month of war. Vlad knows this and it's why he censored the media so heavily and quickly, why he sent so many kill teams to infiltrate and try and kill him. With out censored media, this war would have torn Russia apart and Vlad would be making a quick exit, one way or another.