Putin may be good or bad, for any number of reasons. Is he doing what others are unwilling to do, however? I mean, you look at the USA and its politicians cannot wait to send arms into the latest conflict, and for some reason are sure they know the good from the bad on the ground of places they only ever visit with armed convoys (*cough* McCain). So I don't really see how Putin is so terrible for openly stating, as he has on several occasions, that Russia is intervening on behalf of the legitimate government of Syria because the "rebels" are mostly Islamist scum. He's not wrong, even if he is authoritarian and bad (by hypocritical western standards, that is), and even if people did die in the Nord-Ost attack. (Funny how that's spun, by the way..."130 die from gas on his orders!" What about the Chechen terrorists who had taken them hostage in the first place? Is it better that they get to blow everyone up or shoot everyone so that everyone dies, instead of 130? There were 850-900 hostages.)
When you are in situations that don't have clear cut "good" outcomes like that, sometimes it's necessary to consider all possible outcomes and settle on one that is not good, but is not as bad as the worst possible ones. I'm not even saying that's what Putin or the Spetsnaz did in this case or any other particular case, only that 130 dead is 'better' (again, only comparatively; you could never say that if you consider the enormous weight of 130 dead on their families and such) than 900 dead. And also, they killed 40 of the terrorists. That is something I would say is actually a clear cut good, as that is 40 terrorists who can't hold another theater hostage.