What is at stake for Russian Putin in the American elections? | US Election News 2024

With a desktop computer at his side, the secretary of state of the southern U.S. state of Georgia told reporters Thursday that a video posted on social media purporting to show Haitians voting in the American presidential election for Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, had been false.

According to Georgia State Official Brad Raffensberger, it was likely a production of Russian troll farms.

As the long, drawn-out race for the White House finally draws to a close on November 5, with Harris and former President Donald Trump engaged in a bitter fight, Russia once again finds itself embroiled in the election.

As in 2016 and 2020, Moscow has again been accused by U.S. officials of attempting to influence election results, with a recent federal indictment alleging that right-wing social media influencers received arguments from the from Russian state media. These incidents amplify accusations that the Kremlin favors Trump in the White House.

Yet while a Trump victory could help Russia, some analysts say Moscow's calculations are more complex and point to the first term of Republican presidential candidates as proof.

Lessons from the last eight years

After Trump's victory in the 2016 election, there was hope in Russia that US policy would become more favorable to Moscow and its interests.

However, he imposed new sanctions on Russia and approved deadly aid to Ukraine, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, something his predecessor, Barack Obama, refused to do.

Yet the flow of munitions to Ukraine under President Joe Biden's administration has increased by several orders of magnitude, while Trump has recently considered reducing aid or even eliminating it altogether, a stance that clearly benefits Russia.

That, and Trump's promise to immediately end the war in Ukraine if he comes to power, have found some resonance on the Russian street.

My mother said today that Trump will win soon and the war in Ukraine will end because America will finally stop giving money to Ukraine, Isolda K, a 38-year-old Muscovite, told Al Jazeera years.

Isolda added that although her mother was not a strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin, the [state] the propaganda has done its job.

Those at the top know it best. This is why they are in power!

Predictable Harris or impulsive Trump?

The Kremlin's official position on the elections has been relatively moderate.

At a conference in Vladivostok in September, Putin joked that he, too, supported Harris, citing her infectious laugh. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov then clarified that Putin was joking, adding that Russian-American relations have deteriorated to the point where it doesn't matter who occupies the Oval Office since all the crucial decisions are made by the deep state (the military complex -industrial and intelligence community), ensuring the coherence of foreign policy regardless of the commander in chief.

Nevertheless, the two favorites for the presidency have expressed divergent diplomatic positions.

Harris' policies will be a more forceful continuation of Biden's policies. Ukraine will be able to count on military aid and overall support from the United States, although I don't think Harris will be bold enough to get Ukraine admitted to NATO during the war, Russian economist said and professor at the University of Chicago, Konstantin Sonin.

Trump, meanwhile, blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for allowing the war to break out, calling him the biggest salesman on the planet for receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Trump also claimed, without explaining how, that he would bring peace in one day if elected.

The move was met with skepticism in Moscow, including from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who added that Harris was a more predictable opponent.

Putin and Peskov signal that a Harris presidency is more stable in terms of foreign policy, including toward Russia, suggested Kimberly St Julian-Varnon, an American historian of the Soviet Union.

Russia can count on continued financial aid and military support for Ukraine and increased U.S. support for NATO and its allies in the European Union, she said. This is essentially more of what Russia has faced and prepared for since 2022.

Putin knows that Trump is more impulsive and reactionary in terms of policy, and that his word cannot be trusted. Trump's position on the Israeli war in Gaza is quite different from Putin's, and this, I believe, also influences how Putin and Peskov view a second Trump presidency.

How could Trump help Russia?

Meanwhile, Trump's running mate JD Vance has a detailed peace plan for the Russian-Ukrainian war, which includes a demilitarized zone along the current front line, effectively ceding Ukrainian territory currently under Russian control and keeping Ukraine outside NATO.

These are results that largely favor Russia and suggest that the Trump administration will not continue providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine, Varnon said. An end or drastic reduction of sanctions against Russia could also follow.

But even though Trump or Harris could become heads of state, they do not have the final say.

Trump's policies will be more volatile, so there will be a lot of loud statements and a lot more uncertainty about the United States' commitment to supporting Ukraine, Professor Sonin said.

Yet, in my opinion, Trump will not completely stop the flow of military aid. Congress has the power of the purse, so the president must muster support for aid programs, et cetera. There is strong support for aid to Ukraine among the American public and in the US Congress, so even President Trump will need to continue supporting Ukraine.

However, Varnon warned that it could swing either way.

Even though Harris or Trump would dictate their foreign policy goals, Congress is, in my eyes, the most important actor, she explained.

Even if Harris won and wanted to continue aid to Ukraine, a Republican-controlled or dominated House and Senate could easily reduce or postpone that aid, which is what happened in the winter and early spring of 2024 .

What's next?

But even if aid is cut off, that doesn't guarantee peace talks.

Moscow's goals in Ukraine are unrealistic; from the beginning, they have been based on an illusory worldview, in which there is no Ukrainian nation, Poland is ready to carve out part of western Ukraine, etc., explained Sonin.

Putin, he said, hopes for a Trump victory and a subsequent peace imposed on Ukraine. But this, according to Sonin, reflects Putin's delusion.

In Putin's worldview, Ukraine is a puppet of the United States, so they will do whatever the American president tells them to do. Of course, this is not the case: check if US allies actually do what the US tells them to do? he said.

Ukraine will not accept Putin's plans, and Trump has no way of imposing them.

Meanwhile, many ordinary Russians, largely apathetic and powerless about their own politics, are not really invested in a foreign electoral process taking place thousands of miles away.

Anton, a Moscow resident, was frank. I really don't care, he said. But the show can be quite interesting.

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