Putin Put All His Money on Trump: It’s Not Going So Well

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Putin’s gamble on Trump is backfiring “bigly.” This is only further highlighted by Russia’s ordering of some 755 U.S. Embassy employees to leave the country, per the NYT, in response to Congress’ recent bipartisan sanctions against the country.

It appears that Putin believed that Trump would deal favorably with Russia. Trump has spoken favorably about the country over the years, and Putin clearly hoped his election would allow the country to once again be seen by the West as a global superpower. Angela Stent, the director of Eurasian, Russian and East European studies at Georgetown University said in a NYT interview:

One of Putin’s greatest goals is to assure Russia is treated as if it was still the Soviet Union, a nuclear power that has to be respected and feared. And he thought he might get that from Trump.

But the unsavory methods utilized to get the unsavory Trump elected have made things worse for Russia. Their attempts to interfere in the election have directly resulted in these new sanctions and have effectively tied Trump’s hands in dealing with Moscow—possibly for the next several years. In fact, many politicians are beginning to speak of a new Cold War. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who has served in a number of senior intelligence roles for the United States—including in Russia—sums it up nicely:

The Russians would have preferred not to head down this path, but Putin didn’t feel he had a choice but to respond in the classic tit-for-tat manner. We’ve been in a new Cold War for some time now. Any hope for a short-term improvement in relations is gone.

Who would have thought that meddling in a country’s election might upset them? Especially when it resulted in the most-reviled president in modern history.