A cartoon from Russian Internet.
According to latest research of VCIOM (Russian State Public Opinion Research Center) Russians prefer Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton in the White House. Forty-one percent of Russians are interested in the Election campaign for President of the United States. Fifty-nine per center of Russians believe that the results of the American elections are of great importance for the Russian Federation.
A significant proportion of respondents (34%) expect that in case of Trump’s victory in the elections, relations between Russia and the United States will improve. At the same time 53% of the respondents believe that Clinton’s victory would lead to deterioration of relations.
The general director of VCOM Valery Fedorov comments: “Of the two candidates, our compatriots clearly prefer Donald Trump. The eccentric and sharp politician billionaire is more likable than Hillary Clinton. We remember her tough anti-Russian policy in the post of secretary of state.”
Fedorov believes that the preferences of Russians is largely formed on the basis of national interests.
BBC NEWS gave video coverage of this subject.
Putin’s recent comments, calling Trump “a really brilliant and talented person” and “the absolute leader in the presidential race” were not surprising. Putin’s and all his supporters’ sympathy to Donald Trump is not news. As far back as a year ago, August 7, 2015, ex-Duma deputy Konstantin Rykov wrote on Twitter to ex-US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: “Vote for @realDonaldTrump Michael… Trump isn’t a Russophobe. That provokes sympathy”.
Konstantin Rykov, a very important figure, is the pioneer of Russian Internet publishing, the long time head of the Internet department of the First Channel of the state television, the creator of several popular websites, including such websites as Zaputina.ru (For Putin) and Russia.ru. Rykov is often called “the Kremlin’s troll-in-chief”.
There is an opinion that Rykov is behind the Russian website devoted to Donald Trump: http://trump2016.ru/, where all the news about the politician is collected from thousands of sources in five languages. The names of the site’s founders are not published.
The founders claimed that the creation of this site was caused by the unprecedented Russian interest in positive statements of Trump about Russia. The site claims that “Putin has skillfully manipulated Obama”, “Trump is going to establish a decent relationship with Putin” and that “Moscow has already proved that it is able to outwit Washington on the world stage.”
Creators of the site believe that “interest in Trump grows as an avalanche.” They advertise: “Follow the election campaign for the US presidency of the brightest candidate.”
It’s very doubtful that the site was financed by private sources. So, who financed it?
The question of the reason for Putin’s active support of Trump is widely discussed both in Russia and the US.
“Stylistically, Putinand Trump are quite similar,” said Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist who authored the book “Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.”
“There’s a really aggressive posture to both men. Putin respects fighters and he respects aggression and he doesn’t respect calm and deliberation,” Gessen said. “He wants a manly adversary. He wants somebody he can understand.”
Different commentators give different explanation of the reasons for Russian sympathy to Trump.
Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Russian scientist and human rights activist, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution said in his interview to Radio Liberty:
“I think Trump’s rudeness impresses many people in Russia, because Russians are very often mistake rudeness with determination, courage and so on. There is a deep and very serious issue behind this Russian sympathy to Trump: Russia, oddly enough, wants America to be ruled by powerful politicians, because actually Russians admire America. It may sound paradoxical, but Russians believes less in themselves and in their leaders than in the American ones. At some moments they began to idealize America and they are painfully disappointed when weak leaders come to power in the USA. Russians began to worship their idol, and the idol disappoints them. They think that with the arrival of Trump their idol will become strong and powerful again.”
There are also comments with the point of view completely opposite to the point of view of Yuri Yarim-Agaev. Many think that Russians are supporting Trump hoping, that “crazy” billionaire will ruin the USA, which they consider to be the main enemy of Russia.
Franklin Foer of Slate.com writes:
“If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests—and advance his own—he’d look a lot like Donald Trump.”
Many comments simultaneously include conflicting theories to explain Russians’ sympathy to Trump, which demonstrates a lot of controversy involved in the subject.
Miriam Elder, the editor of BuzzFeed News World, writes:
“Putin wants to see a Trump presidency because the billionaire is someone he knows how to deal with, a straight shooter who would put aside things like human rights and armed invasions and get down to business. And they have similar styles, macho and brusque, with varying undertones of authoritarianism.
But Putin’s embrace of Trump is much darker — and echoes the endorsements the Kremlin has made elsewhere. This isn’t an autocrat seeing a fellow strongman. It’s an adversary who has found a new tool.”
The comment of a popular Russian writer Dmitry Bykov, published in his blog, paradoxically combines all the different points of view of other commentators:
(http://sobesednik.ru/dmitriy-bykov/20160606-dmitriy-bykov-pochemu-russkie-tak-veryat-v-Trumpa)
“I recently received a letter from a retired woman friend in St. Petersburg. Her husband has diabetes, both his legs are amputated, he needs a wheelchair. The wheelchair costs eighty thousand rubles and the couple’s combine monthly pension is fifty thousand. She writes: ‘I see no sense in asking our government for help, but it may be wise to write to Trump? He said several times that Russia is a great country and it is impossible to talk to Russians dismissively. He probably needs the support of the American Russians (our rulers do not need people’s support, they get their power not as a result of fair elections). Maybe Trump would send us money for the wheelchair? He is our last hope.’”
“Of course, if she address her letter to Trump, FSB would immediately grab her and her husband. Today asking for an overseas aid is the same as becoming a foreign agent. But for some reason, Russians believe that in the case Trump is elected, he must make a certain amount of good deeds, and for some reason it seems to Russians that he will rush to help them. I cannot understand why they believe it. Maybe because he looks like one of ours? A typical, so to speak, representative of the Russian political elite of Nineties, when one still could chose leaders by voting? Populist, ignorant, vane, rude, vulgar – in a word, someone who looks so native; and he does not forget to refer to Lord, as well as to charity.
“But on the other hand, maybe people just think that Trump is disastrous for the current America? And what is bad for America is good for us?”
