Why Putin Prefers Trump
This is a summary of an article originally published by Politico with the subheading: "You don't have to hunt for a secret web of connections: He's exactly the kind of partner the Kremlin has wanted for years." This article was translated from Russian by Julia Ioffe.
The author proposes that one does not need to find an intricate conspiracy to discover why Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. Zygar compares the 2016 U.S. elections to the 2005 elections between Schroeder and Merkel. Putin had a clear preference for Schroeder because he understood him, just like Putin understands Trump. Putin has prioritized personal relationships with cynical unprincipled leaders—leaders like Trump. Putin believes that Russia should be given a sphere of influence and treated with respect, something that is more likely to happen under Trump, who Putin thinks sees the world as he does. Putin cynically believes that all world leaders view the world through the lens of power, but that they hide behind their ideology of democracy. Zygar asserts that it does not matter whether there were any real ties between Trump and Putin during the election, as “[t]wo cynics can always find a common tongue."
Read the full article at Politico.
Flickr photo by Gage Skidmore shared under a CC BY 2.0 license.