re: The Tucker interview was my first long form exposure to Putin

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You don't have to have a political leaning, to appreciate the contrast between Putin and Biden.

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Who brought up Biden?

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I did

It's a natural comparison, the presidents of the US and Russia. If you're old enough to remember the Soviet Union, it's an even more prominent comparison, as those were the 2 acknowledged superpowers.

And interestingly enough, both men had "speaking events" available to view yesterday.

Biden- about 12 minutes of a statement and some Q&A, in response to the Special Counsel's findings. It was objectively disturbing as an American citizen; he rambled a bit. He got legit angry and combative with the Asian reporter- it wasn't like the Trump back-and-forth snarking. He yelled "that's your opinion! That's your opinion! That's not the press", which sounded bad, and then when you analyze it was confusing. She IS press. And she was specifically referring to what the Special Counsel put in his finding, which kinda was the purpose of the announcement.
Then, he fades on so many sentences, often repeating words or putting in some variation of "you know". You just could tell he was fishing around to finish his thought.
And then of course the Mexican president statement as referring to the Middle East. You take that with the earlier Mitterand and Kohl remarks, and he's developing a pattern of losing track of time, of the here and now. He's disoriented at least part of the time.

You contrast that with the Putin interview, and if nothing else, you can see Putin is still in full control of his faculties.