Between irony and skepticism, Russian elites preferred to joke about it: “Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? In Moscow, we know who the Americans really want to vote for… Vladimir Putin! » In the Kremlin leader's entourage, the victory of the Republican candidate on Wednesday, November 6, however, does not arouse the same enthusiasm as in 2016, during the billionaire's first election. “It doesn’t matter who gets elected. Ultimately, Washington is against us. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change”confided a senior Russian diplomat on the eve of the American presidential election.
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Russian political leaders and businessmen alike recall this with one voice: the hopes they had harbored with the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House in 2017 were quickly dashed; and his supposedly privileged ties with Vladimir Putin had not materialized into better bilateral relations. The first American sanctions against Moscow, taken after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, have not been lifted. On the contrary, they even multiplied under the first Trump presidency.
The Kremlin quickly recalled on Wednesday that it would judge Donald Trump “on concrete actions”. Vladimir Putin does not plan to call to congratulate him, said his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. « Let us not forget that we are talking about a hostile country which is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state”he insisted.
For his part, Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president who became one of the most nationalist voices in Moscow, has already warned: “We have no reason to have high expectations. For Russia, the elections will not change anything, since the positions of the candidates fully reflect the bipartisan consensus on the need to defeat our country”he warned.
“Russophobic orientation”
He who, in the Kremlin from 2008 to 2012, played complicity with American presidents and European heads of state and government, today does not hide his distrust of Donald Trump too quickly seen as an ally of the Kremlin: “A tired Trump, spouting platitudes like 'I'll make a deal' and 'I have a great relationship with…', will be forced to play by all the rules of the system. He cannot stop the war in Ukraine. Not in one day, not in three days, not in three months. And if he really tries, he could become the new JFK. »
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