Few will disagree that Vladimir Putin is easily the most effective head of state on today’s world stage. Americans may not like him, but Russians love and adore him.

I'm not personally of the opinion that Putin is the most effective head of state on the Globe, but there's no doubt Russians love him, and for good reason. From wikipedia:

During Putin's first premiership and presidency (1999–2008), real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved, and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly.[9] Putin's first presidency was marked by high economic growth: the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, seeing GDP increase by 72% in PPP (as for nominal GDP, 600%).

He didn't even have to take his shirt off to do it. That's just the icing on the cake. The most sensible criticism of Putin I've seen (and I agree with it) is that he failed to effectively take advantage of the tremendous wealth pouring in from the energy sector to transform and diversify the economy to make it more broad based. His administration may have missed the boat on executing economic reform of the type that could more effectively insulated them from what is happening right now.

As US capacity utilization returns to pre-2001 levels, and inflation gains momentum...

This line I didn't quite understand. Gains momentum from what? Haven't inflation hawks been predicting a manifestation for over half a decade now? Why have they been wrong for so long, and what is different in this instance? Not saying it won't/can't happen, I just don't understand the mechanism clearly this time.

I've read a few economists discussing the exposure to Russian debt in the European market since 'Red Monday', -I'm most curious about this. I wonder how long it will take to see if there's a major issue there that manifests...