With Trump In Office, Did The Kremlin Get More Than It Bargained For?

When Donald Trump was running for president, the Kremlin didn’t make a secret that it preferred him to Hillary Clinton.

The thinking in Moscow was that Clinton would follow President Obama in trying to diminish Russia’s role in the world. Trump, on the other hand, promised not only to be friendlier to Russia, but to turn established U.S. foreign policy on its head.

Now it might seem that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wildest dreams have come true: Trump is in the White House, and the United States is too distracted by internal divisions to throw its weight around internationally.

But while schadenfreude at America’s domestic chaos is the prevailing sentiment in Moscow, there’s a growing worry that the Kremlin might be getting more than it bargained for.

On Wednesday, Putin reacted to reports that Trump had revealed highly classified material to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Initially when we watched the first developments in this internal political struggle, we were amused,” Putin said. “But now the spectacle is becoming quite simply sad, and it is causing us concern.”

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