Historic Motion: As President Biden said he was dropping his reelection bid, the sudden upheaval in U.S. politics came as a blow for many in the Russian elite who closely track relations between Moscow and the West.
President Biden’s withdrawal in favor of Vice President Harris has upended a race that the Kremlin and its backers saw as “a window of opportunity” to settle the war in Ukraine on Russia’s aggressive, expansionist terms, according to analysts and current and former Russian officials.
“If Kamala Harris wins the election, it will be a huge disappointment for the Kremlin,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik, a Russian political consultancy now based in France. “Not because they expect some concrete anti-Russian steps but because the nature of American politics will become, from their point of view, irrational and unpragmatic and self-destructive.”
