Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg: Putin Knows Working With Trump Won't Be Fun
In Moscow, many allies of President Vladimir Putin appeared to be in a festive mood after Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election. They aren't stupid, though: They know the gap between Trump's relatively pro-Russian rhetoric during the campaign and his actual policy may be "yuuuge." The celebratory noise is tactical -- an attempt to flatter Trump so he doesn't forget all the nice things he had promised Putin while he ran against that notorious Russia hawk, Hillary Clinton.
The Kremlin will know if the tactic has worked when Trump picks his cabinet, but chances are it won't work too well.
On Wednesday, minutes after Clinton called Trump to concede, legislator Vyacheslav Nikonov addressed the pro-Putin lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma: "A second ago Trump began his speech as president-elect of the United States of America, and I congratulate you all on this." The chamber burst into applause. Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Duma's Foreign Relations committee, called Trump's election "the morning of hope" for U.S.-Russian relations. On Thursday, Putin's press secretary Dmitri Peskov said Trump's and Putin's foreign policy views were "phenomenally close."
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WNU Editor: I have been saying the same thing since the election results became known .... Were Russian Politicians And Pundits Shocked By Donald Trump's Election Win?
