Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, dictator Vladimir Putin laughably claimed to prefer that Kamala Harris win the U.S. presidential election in November. He also lied by asserting that Donald Trump has imposed more sanctions on Russia than any other president. Tellingly, he didn’t mention that Trump was transparently reluctant to impose the sanctions he actually did put in place.
But it’s not primarily relief from sanctions that motivates Putin. His invasion of Ukraine has been a catastrophe on every level. He thought. he’d quickly subdue the nation and put an end to its inexorable political and economic movement toward the West. Instead, he wound up in a quagmire that has left his country isolated and banned from polite international society. Its athletes and chess players aren’t even allowed to compete under the Russian flag. Rather than weakening NATO, as he and Trump wanted to do, the organization has expanded to include Sweden and Finland. His best hope now is to convince the West to force Ukraine into territorial concessions, and to that end he is promoting far right parties in Europe and doing all he can to transform America’s Republican Party into a Pro-Russia, isolationist fascist party.
And here he is having some success. In Germany, the fascist Alternative for Germany Party just won local elections in Thuringia and placed second in Saxony:
Older Germans who lived through the Nazi reign of terror are frightened. Many believed their country had developed an immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority after confronting the horrors of its past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.
But Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, cautioned against labeling AfD’s successes as an aberration.
“Nobody should now speak of ‘protest’ or look for other excuses,” Knobloch said in a statement. “The numerous voters made their decision consciously, many wanted to make the extremists on the fringes responsible.”
Knobloch was 6 years old when she saw the synagogues of Munich burning and watched helplessly as two Nazi officers marched away a beloved friend of her father on Nov. 9, 1938, or Kristallnacht — the “Night of Broken Glass” — when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.
This is the type of outcome Putin desires for the United States, and that’s why he’s working so hard to promote Alt-Right and Pro-Trump voices during our election season.
Employees of the Russia-backed media network RT funded and directed a scheme that sent millions of dollars to prominent right-wing commentators through a media company that appears to match the description of Tenet Media, a leading platform for pro-Trump voices, according to an NBC News review of charging documents, business records and social media profiles.
The indictment on Wednesday of two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, includes allegations that the duo implemented a nearly $10 million plan to fund an unnamed Tennessee-based company as one of their “covert projects” to influence American politics by posting videos to TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.
The company’s description matches that of Tenet Media, according to a review by NBC News of details included in the indictment…
…Tenet has partnered with six commentators: Lauren Southern, Tim Pool, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson. The indictment refers to six commentators, who are not named.
Under 24 hours after the Department of Justice unveiled these indictments, Putin was arguing that Harris “laughs so expressively and infectiously” that perhaps her good humor will lead her to lift sanctions. This followed a Kremlin spokesperson claiming Harris is more predictable than Trump and therefore preferable. This is nothing but an effort to mindfuck the American people and give Trump, the Republican Party and right-wing media a “plausible” defense against their exposure as dupes and tools of the Kremlin.
He wants NATO rolled back if not crippled, which is precisely what Trump has promised to do, even going to far as to say he will encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that doesn’t meet his spending demands.
If you doubt me on this, maybe listen to some of the elected Republicans who secretly want Trump to lose. It’s not just the anti-tariff and small pro-choice crowd in the GOP that are quietly rooting for Harris, it’s also the defense hawks.
In the end, the best evidence that Putin wants Trump to win isn’t that he’s funding his promoters or even their common hostility to NATO and Ukraine. It’s that Putin says that he wants Harris to win.
