Whaaaaaaat?

Vladimir Putin is Time Magazine's Man of the Year. I just read a snippet, so I have no idea what the reasoning from Time is, but let's run through a quick laundry list of negatives: emboldens Iran, oppresses free speech and a free press, creates monopolies within his country, arouses suspicions about political killings of opponents.

He did oppose Bush on sanctions of Iran based on his belief that Iran was running a non-weapons based nuclear program, which they were.

What am I missing here? Will someone read the article and report back please?