Putin Allies Say Russia Must Help Republicans in Midterms—'Bring on Trump!'

Kremlin propagandists discussed how Moscow should help Donald Trump and the Republican party in the midterms as a way to disrupt U.S. politics, with one pundit saying that such turmoil would be "beneficial" for Russia.

Panelists on the Russia-1 program, Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, talked about the need for the Kremlin to interfere with Western elections, including in the U.S., with the anchor saying, "bring on Trump" because "California will go nuts."

Anchors and pundits on Russian state television have previously described their preference for Trump and framed Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine as a confrontation with the West and a way to reshape the global order.

Sunday's exchange was tweeted by journalist and Russia watcher Julia Davis, who wrote, "decorated propagandists...plot interfering in elections all over the world, including the home turf of their most hated enemy—the United States."

The segment started with a clip of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán saying that if Trump was still president and Angela Merkel still German chancellor, the war in Ukraine would never have started.

Solovyov agreed, saying that with those as leaders in power, the West "would have been talking to us." He introduced a soundbite of Trump at the Turning Point Action summit in Tampa, Florida on Saturday, in which the former president said that the U.S. had gone from the "strongest it's ever been" to the "weakest" in two years.

Solovyov then said that there were "shared values" between Orbán, Trump and Putin "but not between Trump and Zelensky."

Political analyst Henry Sardaryan joined the discussion. He turned to Italy, whose government collapsed after the resignation of prime minister Mario Draghi. Sardaryan said the Kremlin should have made more effort to "push through our candidate," because most Italians believed Ukraine should be "split up" to end confrontation with Moscow.

Another panelist, Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, then described the U.S. as "our main adversary" but the problem for Russia was that the American political system was "a lot more stable" than in Europe.

This was why Trump would serve Moscow's interests better because he could light the fuse for "a total internal breakdown."

Sidorov said that Trump "was destroying the leadership of the United States in the world," and "questioned the very structure of global relationships built by his predecessors" with U.S. allies.

Solovyov interrupted to point out Trump's prior criticism of NATO as an example of this.

"Bring on Trump. California will go nuts. New York will go crazy. San Francisco is crazy already," Solovyov said, referring to Democratic states and cities. "They'll all start to fight among themselves."

While Sidorov pointed out that the GOP still had to win in the midterm elections for such a plan to work, he said "we should provide our assistance," prompting Solovyov to reply, "we can do it."

Another guest, military expert Alexander Artamonov chimed in to say, "the worse, the better. It's beneficial for us… We'll put an end to the existence of the old world and start a new era, a new phase—headed by Russia," before Solovyov added, "we'll set the world on fire."

This is an echo of Putin's sentiment on July 20, when he told a forum in Moscow that the current world order dominated by the West was being replaced by "a new stage in world history."