During his third term as President, which began in 2012, Putin and his allies grew increasingly ambitious, seizing Crimea, in 2014, intervening in Syria’s civil war, in 2015, meddling in the 2016 American Presidential election, allegedly plotting the assassinations of exiles and dissidents over the past couple of years, and, shortly before the 2018 Russian Presidential election, boasting of a new nuclear weapon capable of evading U.S. missile defenses. [...]
“He is not necessarily a Soviet man, but he is a Cold War man. And he’s a K.G.B. man,” Nina Khrushcheva, the granddaughter of the former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, reflected at an event at the New School, in New York, last month. “And, for every K.G.B. officer, it was a dream to be known or to be thought of as somebody who can take down American democracy. For him, that image around the world would probably be even more important than this kind of partnership and parity with the United States.” [...]
Western powers long considered resistant to Russian mischief are increasingly vulnerable. Britain is now investigating whether Russia tried to manipulate the 2016 referendum on Brexit. In Germany, Russia allegedly exploited tensions over immigration to undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s strongest advocate for aiding desperate refugees from war-torn countries. Moscow is blamed, for example, for planting a false story about a thirteen-year-old German girl abducted by migrants that emotionally skewed Germany’s immigration debate in the run-up to its election last year. Meanwhile, Spain has charged Russia with fomenting support for the Catalan referendum on independence in 2017. [...]
Russia may now be questioning its investment in Trump’s victory, however. Since his election, Trump has—so far—not helped improve Moscow’s relationship with Washington. This month, the United States imposed new sanctions on Russia—including on its intelligence service—for cyberattacks on the American electricity grid, aviation, and other infrastructure. “The Russians may want to take credit for Trump’s victory, but they may now see that as a mixed blessing,” Tom Pickering, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Under-Secretary of State, said. “They have a man in power who acts as if he’s on a reality-TV show, for whom governance is a second priority.”
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