vlad is a romanian name

How is this relevant? Vlad here is short for Vlaidmir anyway, a russian name. Romanians have Vlad but I suspect its origins are Slavic.

I ve been told it's not the right way to refer to Putin, which is probably correct, there are are other dimunitives

It's just a transliteration of 'volodya'. Not many English-speaking people would understand if you used the proper diminutive form of the name.

Yeah, and the particular associations with that name fit well into current madness.