President Vladimir Putin's recent comments about preferring Joe Biden to win a second term over Donald Trump have raised eyebrows. The Russian leader described Biden as more experienced and predictable during an interview on Russian state TV.
"Biden, he's more experienced, more predictable, he's a politician of the old formation," Putin said. "But we will work with any US leader whom the American people trust."
Trump quickly responded to Putin's words, telling his supporters: "Putin is not a fan of mine," and calling the Russian leader's comments "a very good thing."
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Pro Russian rebels fire grad rockets on Ukrainian positions (Getty Images)However, one expert believes Putin's remarks are part of a calculated strategy to influence Western politics. Keir Giles, a researcher studying Russia, told TheMirror.com: "It's only confusing if you expect Putin to say what he really thinks. You should start from the assumption that Putin is planning carefully what messages he is delivering to Russian media with the expectation that those messages are picked up by Western media. It's hard to imagine he would say something without a careful calculation of how it would influence Western politics and audiences abroad."
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Trump recently questioned the US's financial support for Ukraine and hinted that he might let Russia do as it pleases with NATO countries that don't invest enough in their own defence. This caused a stir in Europe, where some leaders are getting ready for a time when the US isn't the main player in NATO.
Trump's words were very different from Biden's promise "to defend every inch of NATO territory." On Tuesday, Biden said Trump had "bowed down to a Russian dictator."
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Trump is expected to monopolise on the comments from Putin (AFP via Getty Images)Mr Giles went on to say: "Of course, Putin is going to tell us that he has no interest in influencing the US election and of course he's going to want to defuse and confuse all of the supposition about what he might actually want. He's going to take the sting out of the evident sympathy between himself and Trump. Trump wants Putin, Putin wants Trump so naturally Putin is going to pretend he wants the other guy."
In the interview, Putin called NATO a "US foreign policy tool," and said "if the US thinks that it no longer needs this tool it's up to it to decide."
Mr Giles also said: "Putin's and Trump's interests coincide perfectly, because Trump will seize on the criticism of Biden as old school, he'll seize on Putin describing him as predictable and of course it's music to the ears of Trump supporters because it allows them to claim that Putin is in fact not backing Trump."
When asked about rumours regarding Biden's health, Putin said: "I'm not a doctor and I don't consider it proper to comment on that." He also mentioned that Biden seemed perfectly healthy when they met in Switzerland in June 2021.
Biden has kept a hardline in his support for Ukraine (AFP via Getty Images)Biden's team has been working hard to calm worries within the Democratic party after a special counsel raised questions about Biden's age and memory. These concerns were brought up in a report which concluded that Biden would not face any criminal charges for having classified documents while he was not in office.
On the topic of possible collusion between Trump and Russia, our expert said: "It's not perceived collusion. It's well documented over an extended period. No serious Russia watcher is in any serious doubt that the policies that President Trump acted on favour Moscow over Washington."
Our expert explained that this is all part of wider tactics to confuse his enemies. Mr Giles went on to say: "Putin wants further confusion for US politics. It's ammunition for supporters of Trump to say: 'Look it's not the case that Putin backs Trump because Trump backs Putin. Here he is publicly saying he wants Biden to win.' And of course it makes it harder for people who point out that Trump and Putin have identical objectives and a Trump win would be disastrous for the US. It plays into a Trump victory because it makes it more challenging to point out the obvious drawbacks of Trump being elected. "
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