Russian state television shows what Putin really thinks about the US election

• Despite the Kremlin’s neutral stance, Russian state media show they favor Donald Trump.
• State media has ridiculed Kamala Harris while portraying Trump in a positive light.
• Meta and TikTok have previously banned Russian state media for election interference.

The Kremlin has long maintained that it does not care who wins the US presidential election on November 5.

“Generally speaking, the outcome of this election makes no difference to us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Newsweek earlier this month.

But despite what Russian officials claim, the country’s state media tells a very different story.

“Russia cares a lot about who wins the American election,” RAND policy researcher Ann Marie Dailey told Business Insider.

“Russia will try to influence the election in a way that minimizes US support for Ukraine.”

State media coverage

According to Reuters, Harris’ tendency to burst out laughing during interviews and debates has been ridiculed on Russian state television broadcasts.

Russian state television has also aired compilations of some of Harris’ worst moments and has made frequent sexist and racist comments about the presidential candidate.

“Kamala with the nuclear button is worse than a monkey with a grenade,” Andrei Sidorov, dean of Moscow State University’s department of global politics, told Russian state channel Rossiya 1, according to Politico.

By comparison, the main news program on Russian state television’s Channel One often portrays Trump and running mate JD Vance as confident and intelligent, Reuters said.

The discrepancy between how broadcasters view the two candidates was especially stark after last month’s presidential debate, which was widely seen as a clear victory for Harris.

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However, Russian channels struggled to explain what had happened.

According to the Daily Beast, hosts and pundits on Russian state television said Trump was somehow “sabotaged” or “disadvantaged.”

Covert influence operations

This is not just an apparently biased report. Last month, TikTok said it removed accounts associated with Russian state media for “engaging in covert influence operations.”

Meta also banned RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, alleging that the media had used deceptive tactics to carry out jamming activities.

In a statement to the BBC at the time, RT said: “It’s beautiful how there is competition in the West, which can try to beat RT harder in order to make itself look better.

“Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ (or in your parlance, guerillas) will find the cracks to crawl in, as by your own admission, we are capable of- it.”

In September, the Justice Department said in an indictment that an unnamed Tennessee company, later identified as conservative firm Tenet Media, took nearly $10 million from Russian state media company RT.

The goal, according to the Justice Department, was “to create and distribute content to the American public with hidden messages from the Russian government.”

Tenet Media published content from six influencers, all of whom publicly support former President Donald Trump. The influencers distanced themselves from the allegations and described themselves as “victims”.

Trump’s influence

“The Kremlin is most concerned about this election,” Mathieu Boulegue, a fellow Chatham House consultant, told BI.

“They would much prefer a Trump presidency. They care so much about the election that they are trying to rig and game the election using propaganda, information warfare and probably cyber activities.”

For Putin, a Trump presidency could help him achieve his goals in Ukraine. Trump has praised Putin for being “smart” and a “genius” after he launched his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

He has consistently supported a quick end to the war in Ukraine and has questioned why the US is helping Ukraine defend itself.

The war has been costly for Russia. An unnamed US official told Reuters in February that Russia’s war in Ukraine has cost it up to $212 billion.

A December 2023 RAND report projected the direct costs of the war to Russia through 2024 at $132 billion.

While Trump has offered few details on how the war might end, a peace plan suggested by Vance in a podcast in September indicated that it would involve Ukraine ceding territory held by Russia and pledging neutrality.

William Pomerantz, an analyst at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, previously told BI that “Trump believes he can end the war in Ukraine within a week, but that would require giving in to all of Putin’s demands.”

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.