CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin caused a stir on Thursday when he expressed his support for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy and flattered the Democratic candidate with some oddly timed remarks.
“Our ‘favorite,’ if you can call him that, was the current president, Mr. (Joe) Biden. But he was taken out of the race and recommended all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. Well, that’s what we will do – we will support her,” Putin said on Thursday at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. “She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means she is doing well.”
Putin also criticized former President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump for imposing “more restrictions and sanctions on Russia than any president before him.”
Putin’s comments come on the heels of the Biden administration’s announcement of sweeping sanctions aimed at combating a Russian government-backed disinformation effort to influence the 2024 election and bolster Trump’s candidacy.
And despite the Russian president’s vocal support for Democrats, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Wednesday that three Russian companies – at Putin’s direction – used fake profiles to spread false narratives on social media. Internal documents created by one of those Russian companies show that one of the goals of the propaganda campaign was to support Trump’s candidacy or whoever emerged as the Republican presidential nominee, according to an FBI affidavit.
So what is Putin trying to achieve?
If history is anything to go by, Putin is merely a driver of US domestic policy. In December 2015, Putin praised Trump and called him the front-runner months before the businessman received the Republican nomination.
“He is without a doubt a smart and talented person,” Putin said, calling Trump “an outstanding and talented personality.”
Did Putin know something about the 2016 US presidential election that pollsters didn’t? No, but the Kremlin chief did little to hide his antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee at the time.
And when stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee were made public shortly before the Democratic Party Convention, Putin did not hide his glee.
While U.S. authorities blamed Russia for the hack, Putin denied that the Russian state had anything to do with it. And in remarks at the same forum in September 2016, he praised the leak as a service to voters, saying, “What is important is the content that has been made available to the public.”
This is the embarrassing revelation in the leaked emails that Democratic politicians gave Clinton preferential treatment.
In other words, the entire DNC hacking episode reinforced the Kremlin’s view that American democracy is a farce: nothing matters except power, everything is decided in smoke-filled rooms, and it is hypocritical to tell countries like Russia to abide by democracy and human rights.
Putin’s view of the American political system becomes even more understandable when one recalls an insight from the exiled Russian political journalist and author of the book “The Kremlin’s Incorruptibles”, Mikhail Zygar.
Zygar noted that Putin loved “House of Cards” – the darkly cynical television series about Washington politics – and even recommended it to his ministers.
“This is his textbook on American politics,” Zygar said in an interview.
It is also possible that Putin simply wanted to annoy Harris by ignoring Trump’s constant insults about her laughter with a wink.
If you look at Putin’s view of U.S. electoral politics through the lens of “House of Cards,” Putin’s support for Harris is a kind of Frank Underwood move: a kind of support that is toxic to the recipient.
Additional reporting by Anna Chernova and Christian Edwards.
