2024 US presidential election: Russian media backs Donald Trump over Kamala Harris ahead of polls despite claim of neutrality

Russian officials, from President Vladimir Putin on down, say Moscow has no problem who wins the White House on November 5. Yet anyone watching the Kremlin-led state media coverage of the US election would conclude donald trump she is very favored.

State TV’s flagship Channel One news program this month showed a video of billionaire Elon Musk and TV host Tucker Carlson disparaging the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris before expanding on what he presented as a series of stumbling performances.

Harris’ tendency to burst into laughter, something Putin himself sarcastically spoke about last month, has featured prominently on broadcasts, and state television has played compilations of his less eloquent remarks on the campaign trail.

By contrast, the same Channel One report portrayed Trump and running mate JD Vance so confident and imbued with common sense on everything from transgender politics to immigration, yet confronting sinister forces as evidenced by assassination plots.

The Kremlin says the choice of who becomes the next president of the United States is solely a matter for the American people and that it will work with whoever is elected.

He has denied leadership coverage, although some former state media employees have spoken publicly about weekly Kremlin meetings where guidance is given on various issues.

The state media’s apparent preference for Trump may come as no surprise.

Trump has been much less openly supportive of Ukraine in its war against Russia than either incumbent President Joe Biden or Harris, prompting fears in Kiev that it could lose its most important ally if he wins.

Trump, who has repeatedly praised Putin over the years and boasted of a good working relationship, last week blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for helping start the war.

This month he refused to confirm reports that he had spoken to Putin on several occasions since he left office in 2021, saying only: “If I did, it’s a smart thing to do.”

Harris, by contrast, has called Putin “a murderous dictator”, vowed to continue supporting Ukraine and said the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny was “another sign of Putin’s brutality”. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s disappearance.

State television has often featured guest speakers on its prime-time geopolitical talk shows who express a preference for Trump, though their reasons sometimes vary.

Andrei Sidorov, a senior academic at Moscow State University, told a major state television conference program this month that Trump would be better for Russia because he would cause a split that could unleash a long-running fantasy of anti-Russian hawks westerns: the disintegration of the United States during the struggles between its constituent states.

“I’m for Trump. I was always for Trump, he’s a destroyer. If he’s elected … then civil war will really be the order of the day,” Sidorov said, predicting a Democratic victory would mean the same “bullshit” which now continues .

“(But) Trump could really cause our geopolitical adversary to collapse without a single missile being fired.”

WITHOUT ILLUSIONS

A 2017 US intelligence report said Putin had led a sophisticated influence campaign to discredit Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and support Trump in the 2016 race for the White House. The Kremlin denied meddling and Trump denied any collusion with Russia during that campaign.

Despite the different approaches of the two current candidates in Moscow, some Russian officials – who are navigating the worst period in US-Russian relations since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – have expressed their distrust of both.

Harris, they say, would mean a continuation of what Moscow sees as Biden’s proxy war with Russia “down to the last Ukrainian.”

Trump, who raised hopes in Moscow of better ties before taking office in 2017, is remembered for imposing sanctions when he was in the White House despite warm words about Putin. In Moscow’s eyes, the broader American political establishment seemed to appear in Russian politics.

“I have no illusions. (When Trump was president) he had several conversations with President Vladimir Putin. He received me a couple of times in the White House. He was kind,” recalled the Minister of Foreign Affairs in September Russian Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov.

“But sanctions against the Russian Federation were imposed under President Trump on a regular basis. As a result, we concluded that we have to rely on ourselves. Never in our history will we have a ‘good guy’ coming into the House White.”

A Russian source said there were differing views at the top levels of the Kremlin about Trump, but confirmed that some believed a Trump victory might not bode well for Moscow.

“Look at what happened the last time he became president. Everyone said before that US-Russia relations would benefit, but they ended up even worse. Trump says a lot but doesn’t always follow through.” said the source, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.

The same source questioned whether Trump’s alleged reluctance to continue funding and arming Ukraine and his talk of being able to end the war quickly would survive lobbying efforts by powerful US factions that argue Ukraine’s fate is existential for the West and that Kiev must not lose.

A second senior source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Moscow did not expect much from either candidate. Trump had been “quite tough” on Moscow when he was in power, was worryingly impulsive and had tough views on Russia’s ally China, he said.

The source added that he did not expect to see a big change in Moscow-Washington relations whoever is elected.

“Neither Trump nor Harris will fundamentally change the relationship with Russia. There will be no great new friendship,” the source said.

“The West sees Russia and China as bad and the West as good and it’s hard to see any leader changing a belief that is now entrenched in the Washington elite.”