Vladimir Putin and Donald Trunp. Photo: Collected
Russian President Vladimir Putin has no doubt he will secure another term in Russia's election. The vote that leaves him in suspense, and could do more to change his policies, will occur eight months later in the United States.
Putin has publicly said he prefers US President Joe Biden to his predecessor and aspiring successor Donald Trump, a remark widely interpreted to mean exactly the opposite, as the former KGB man hopes his notoriety will boost the Republican mogul.
Trump has voiced admiration for Putin, raged against NATO, the alliance founded to defend against Moscow, and boasted that he within one day would end the war in Ukraine, which Russia invaded two years ago.
Trump supporters in Congress, seizing on an unrelated dispute over migration, have held up approval of $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, whose troops have faced the first battlefield setbacks in months as ammunition runs scarce.
Biden in his annual State of the Union address lashed out at Trump for saying he would encourage Putin to "do whatever the hell you want" if a NATO member does not spend enough.
"My message to President Putin, who I've known for a long time, is simple," Biden said. "I will not bow down."
Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies US-Russia relations, expected Putin to wait for the US election before any significant new move, militarily or diplomatically, on Ukraine.
"I don't expect any Russian attempt at some sort of major offensive in Ukraine which would cost them several hundred thousand men. The reason is that Putin is waiting to get a good deal on the cheap," Aron said.
He said Trump in a new term could block arms to Ukraine and "the only question-mark then would be how much Europe has been scared" into stepping up its own support to Kyiv.
"He's somebody who's able to get his way and he looks like the ultimate strongman," Hill, who testified in Trump's first impeachment, told a recent conference of conservatives opposed to Trump.
Asked about the recent death in prison of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which Trump has made light of, Hill said that Trump's reaction if Navalny had died during his administration would depend "if it reflected on him or not."
"If somebody had actually said that this was a sign of American weakness, that we couldn't keep Navalny safe," she said, "that would have changed Trump's perception."
"It's just as capricious as that, I'm afraid."
Russia has turned into a partisan dividing line in the United States, a development unthinkable in an earlier era when most Americans viewed the Soviet Union as a top threat.
His interview was widely criticized for lacking tough questions, with even Putin saying he expected Carlson to be more aggressive.
On the policy side, figures including Senator J.D. Vance and Trump-era Pentagon official Elbridge Colby have argued that Russia and Ukraine are a distraction from a greater threat from China.
"There is some difference between things Trump has said and things his most fervent acolytes have said. So the Russians could be disappointed were Trump to win," Herbst said.
Messenger/Sumon
