Those kind of dan grades are always given out of "respect", but other people have to usually work their whole life in betterment of the art before they reach 8th dan in a single art (for example, the current head guy of the Kyokushin organization is 8th dan, same as Putin..), while Putin gets three out of nowhere. There's a video of him doing Judo and he sucks at it, I can only imagine how awful he's at the other stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if he made some deal with those Russ organizations so he gets better PR.