I don’t know but Russia seems to be getting what it wants from Trump, right now at least. The US is way less stable than Russia at the moment though and may flip again after he is out.

I think Putin is gambling that a division between Europe and the US will give him more power, comparatively. China are probably into that idea too. Europe’s GDP is 1.5 times bigger than China’s and 14 times bigger than Russia’s though. If Europe decides to tool up, which it’s saying it will then the best case scenario for Russia is that the US gets to go off and hang out with other nutcases like North Korea, Haiti and Burkina Faso and the worst case is that Russia ends up with a lot of very big new guns aimed at it by twitchy and paranoid neighbours who have a newfound passion for distracting from their economic and social failures by talking tough and finding bogeymen.

As a European I am grateful to Donald Trump for giving us the much needed kick up the backside to finally ditch the US. It’s an odd move for an empire to willingly give up its vassal states but the opportunity should not be missed by us.