-Analysis-
MOSCOW — The Kremlin leadership is counting on the fact that the election campaign in the United States will likely not end on Tuesday, but will only be the beginning of a period of political turmoil that it hopes will last as long as possible.
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For Russians, the election in the U.S. is always an invariably fascinating spectacle. Back home, they don’t have the colorful parades with conventions, primaries, heated debates (Putin has never dared to engage in an open discussion with another politician), media wars and very public displays of political emotion.
Today, Russian social media users are brimming with gleeful amazement that the fate of the United States, and indeed the entire world, may be decided by some paltry 19,000 voters in Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania. And what do 19,000 people mean compared to 110 million eligible Russians, who have known for years that they do not decide anything at the ballot box. It’s an issue of contrasting mentalities.
Putin For Harris?
Putin chooses irony as a cure for such complexes. When, in 2000, Americans in Florida could not count the several hundred votes that decided whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would ultimately become president, the freshly-installed Kremlin lord asked acerbically what kind of democracy is it where they cannot “count properly.”
Today, he has fun mocking Kamala Harris, whom he “supports” as a joke. In early September, with a wry smile, he publicly announced:
“I have already said, if you can say so, that for us the favorite is the current president, Mr. Biden. He has been taken out of play, but he is asking his supporters to support Ms. Harris. So we will do the same. We will support her.”
The tendency to show cheerfulness and laughter is not well-received in Russia.
He also explained why it is “worth it” to bet on the Democrat. She “laughs so lively and contagiously,” which means that “everything is fine with her.”
Putin knows well that the tendency to show cheerfulness and laughter is not well-received in Russia. It is not for nothing that Russians say that “smiling without a reason is a sign of durachina” (stupidity).
The leader’s idea was creatively developed by Yevgeny Popov, one of his main propagandists, who described the election campaign as follows: “They replaced the old horse with a mare at the crossing, but she can only neigh.”
In the Kremlin media, Harris is firmly cast in the role of “the stupid one.” When she is shown on TV, it is usually against the background of some stumble, scandal, or row. And her opponent, Donald Trump, always appears on screens to the background of applause and shouts of the delighted hall.
Behind Donald Trump
Trump, who is sometimes familiarly called “Donald Fredovitch” in the Russian media, is allowed to blunder much more. Even when toward the end of the election campaign, he happened to blurt out something anti-Russian, they found him an excuse, just as they do for their own politicians.
They were not outraged in Russia when he blurted out that he had threatened Putin that he would hit his “Christian Moscow” so that “shards of golden domes would rain down on him.” And when the Republican candidate “admitted” that he had “destroyed” the Nord Stream gas pipeline, there was no cry of “Russophobia” or “neo-Nazism.” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, explained with extraordinary calm that it was just “election emotions” that had dictated Trump’s statements.
Moscow is trying hard to show that Biden’s policy of supporting Ukraine is not bearing any good results.
The front is working for Trump at the cost of very serious losses. Moscow is trying hard to show before the elections that Biden’s policy of supporting Ukraine is not bearing any good results.
For the past three months, the Russians have been launching 130 to 190 attacks on enemy lines every day. On Friday, November 1, there were 145 of them, more than half of them in the direction of Pokrovsk and Kurakhov, where five Russian army divisions are taking part in battles on a 70-kilometer stretch.
The Ukrainians are still retreating. Since the beginning of August, they have given up 1,100 square kilometers of their territory, but they are not retreating in panic.
War deal or Yalta
During the American election campaign, Moscow has been carefully calculating what will pay off more for Russia. There, as a rule, they bet on the Republicans because, unlike the Democrats, they do not bother with human rights and prattle on about the principles of democracy, but think about business, which could lead to benefits for Russian interests.
And Trump is promising what is most important for the Kremlin. He talks about a “deal,” which he promises will end the war. Three years ago, before it began its large-scale aggression, Moscow announced that its goal was precisely an agreement between the great powers, which, over the heads of smaller nations, would divide the world between themselves into “zones of responsibility”.
And with Harris, it is rather impossible to sit down with the United States to talk about a “new Yalta.”
Counting on post-election chaos
However, these hopes may turn out to be in vain. It is not known what idea the unpredictable Trump has for Russia and Ukraine. Maybe he himself does not know.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a Russian news source close to the Kremlin recently recalled: “At the beginning of Trump’s first term, some transaction concerning Ukraine was expected, and it would be beneficial for the Kremlin. Instead, there were severe anti-Russian sanctions, the first deliveries of lethal weapons to Kyiv. It would be naive to explain this by alleged pressure from the Democrats. Trump acted like a businessman and did what he considered beneficial. And this means that his future course towards Russia is also a mystery. Just like Harris’s policy today.”
The worst thing would be if the winner turned out to be strong
For Moscow, the very fact that the U.S. elections are concluding with such turmoil is excellent news. Something may finally break through, something may stabilize. The worst thing would be if the winner turned out to be strong and took everything, meaning not only the White House, but also the majority in Congress, so he or she would be able to push through decisive policies.
Mikhail Rostovsky, a commentator for Moskovsky Komsomolets and one of the most astute observers of the Russian political scene, is therefore betting on a draw:
“It would be ideal for Russia if, as a result of the presidential elections, America were to sink into its own internal quarrels,” he wrote recently. “Remember how nice it was when the Republicans and Democrats got so bogged down in disputes over migration that they stopped supporting the Zelensky regime, and left his army without supplies of ammunition and weapons?”
Moscow’s dream scenario is an unclear election result, quarrels, trials, a repeat of the storming of the Capitol. And if that happens, the Kremlin will not hesitate by any means to add fuel to the American fire.
