Moscow Hopes To Downplay Obama’s Successor

Russia doesn’t want anyone to force it to abandon its allies, like Iran, but it also doesn’t need to choose its enemies. Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed willing to work with any president the U.S.’ people elect, despite disagreements over international matters and security.

Putin, who returned to the Kremlin in 2012, maintains a tense relationship with President Barack Obama, who has pushed for sanctions on Russia ever since it annexed Crimea in March of 2014. He now focuses his attention on one region — Asia — where Moscow seeks to come out on top as a regional power.

Although just a few days ago he compared U.S. world dominance with Soviet control of Central Europe, Putin responded constructively in a Russian television interview about whether he likes the Democratic candidate, ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or the Republican, Jeb Bush: “We will work with any president elected by Americans. We are not working with a specific person, but with a country, a very large one with great influence on the world.”

For Putin, the biggest divide between Moscow and Washington is the anti-missile system in Europe. The Kremlin considers it a direct threat to Russia’s security. Nor has he forgotten the differences “over a few points on the international agenda,” like the Syrian or North Korean conflicts and relationships with countries like Venezuela or Iran, two of Moscow’s important allies.

The Russian president has made a move in Iran this week by lifting the embargo on the delivery of a shipment of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Tehran before the final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear plan is even signed, which has enraged Israel.

The Israeli government has avoided voting against Russian meddling in Ukraine, thus maintaining ties with Moscow that are stronger than ever. Yet it has done them little good as the Iranians are still receiving this military aid.

Putin highlighted the fact that Russia and the U.S. work together in many other matters, like the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. But Moscow wants to play a more relevant role in the Middle East. Iran and Syria are two important allies, and their respective governments have earned more freedom to act. But it’s the U.S.’s progressive withdrawal from the region, where it has fought so many wars, that opens up so many possibilities to Moscow, which lost its influence in the region when the Soviet Union collapsed and when it lost allies one Arab Spring after another.

Obama has admitted that he would have preferred it if Dmitry Medvedev had continued as the Kremlin’s head. And although Putin doesn’t want to talk about the U.S.’s electoral debate, he certainly would not celebrate Hillary Clinton’s victory: when she was secretary of state, he accused her of instigating street riots in Moscow during the electoral “fraud” in 2011.