While Democrat Joe Biden has called President Donald Trump Russian President Vladimir "Putin's puppy," Russia might be looking forward to having a more certain foe in the White House in Biden than the unpredictable Trump.
"If you don't consider Putin's hopes, Russian leaders in general are very skeptical about Trump, much more skeptical than they used to be," Moscow-based think tank R. Politik's Tatyana Stanovaya told The Washington Post.
"In the Kremlin, people are very tired from Trump. A lot of hopes failed and even if we imagine that tomorrow we could seal a deal with Trump somewhere — take Syria or some other topics — we can't believe that he would be able to secure this deal at home. So we can't really count on Trump."
Russia has seen four years of sanctions from the Trump administration, but it has eight years of experience dealing with a Biden-like regime.
"It will be more predictable, and that's a good point in the current situation," Stanovaya added to the Post.
What might be a bigger Russian worry of a Biden administration is diminished influence, good or bad, according to Council on Foreign Relations' Stephen Sestanovich.
"The sad news for Putin may be that a Biden administration doesn't want either a bad or good relationship with him, but just less of one than we've been used to having," Sestanovich told the Post, noting the Trump administration withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, alleging Russian violations.
"Russia is in part acting this way because it feels like it can and there's no significant penalty for what it's doing, and I don't necessarily expect that to change overnight."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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