If the Russians did fear the possibility of President Hillary Clinton, as this article says, why didn't the Russians try to prevent Hillary Clinton from getting the Democratic nomination?
Why didn't the Russians try to put Comrade Bernie into that position to end the Hillary threat early rather than rely on Trump--of all people!--to stop Hillary?
And why didn't the Russians try to help anyone--anyone at all--in the Republican contest, given that Trump was widely viewed as the weakest possible candidate to face Hillary? Indeed, Democrats in the Hillary camp welcomed a Trump challenger (as the favorable press by even the left-leaning press demonstrates).
So no, I don't buy the idea that Russia has "buyer's regret" over Trump.
I do buy the notion that the Russians are worried about Trump.
And in bonus territory, this Russian worry noted in the article is exactly what I wrote about early after the election:
The Kremlin today is staunchly opposed to “regime change,” the visitors were told, and thus skittish about eulogizing [the Bolshevik revolution in] 1917. It plans to use the centenary, instead, to draw attention to the catastrophic consequences of resorting to revolution to solve social and political problems.
The last thing the Russian government expected was that 2017 would bring it face to face not with a revolution of the past but with a revolution of the present — the radical regime change taking place in the United States as a result of the electoral victory of Donald Trump. It is Trump’s electoral revolution that has captured the imagination, and fanned the fears, of Russian elites today.
As I said before, the Russian people saw the American people elect an underdog that the elites and the media tried to stop with a shamelessly biased effort that pulled out all the stops to demonize Trump and his supporters, and bully those supporters into staying home and not voting for Trump.
Who knows what lessons the Russian people might draw from our election when the thrill of cheap intervention abroad wears off?
Putin is right to fear Trump even if Trump does nothing at all.
UPDATE: The Left rabidly condemns Trump as a Russian puppet despite Trump's reversal of Putin-friendly policies of Obama who the Left loved:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
*Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
*Blocking oil and gas pipelines
*Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
*Cutting U.S. military spending
*Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran
That Trump is planning to do precisely the opposite of these things may or may not be good policy for the United States, but anybody who thinks this is a Russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice.
Obama actually did all of these things, and none of the liberal media now up in arms about Trump ever called Obama a Russian puppet; instead, they preferred to see a brave, farsighted and courageous statesman.
But don't worry, the born-again Cold Warriors on the Left will pivot to traditional Leftist apologies for the USSR/Russia once it becomes clear even to their denser elements that Trump is not actually a Putin puppet.
And the Left will claim that they've always been at war with Eastasia.
