Four years ago, they toasted in champagne. Now Russia will not even congratulate.

MOSCOW (Aftenposten): Vladimir Putin will not congratulate Joe Biden because he prefers Trump. OR?

It’s 2016 and Republican Donald Trump has just declared himself the winner of the US presidential elections. There is applause. Champagne and sausages are served. The place is not a Republican election rally, but in the Russian parliament in Moscow.

– I congratulate you all on this, said politician Vyaslav Nikonov of Putin’s United Russia party.

Four years have passed. Donald Trump has lost the election, but he has divided America. It has weakened America’s reputation internationally. The president has questioned the alliances.

And now Russia is meeting with President Joe Biden, who is a friend of NATO. A president who says he wants to strengthen relations with Europe. Which has a stronger tone towards authoritarian regimes.

It seems obvious that Trump is therefore a preferred candidate for old rival Russia. President Vladimir Putin has yet to congratulate Democrat Joe Biden on his victory. Neither did Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. It has also been calm on the part of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey.

On the other hand, most of the US allies in the EU and NATO, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s Boris Johnson and the Nordic prime ministers, have congratulated Biden on the victory.

For weeks, the Russian media have been playing on Biden’s old age and reassuring the public about sanctions against Russia, and perhaps new wars as well.

But is it so simple that Putin is disappointed? This has been an ongoing debate in Russia in recent months and weeks. Thus experts argue that the situation is more complex than you might think:

1. Lack of congratulations

– It will wait until there is an official result, political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin told Ekho Moskvij radio station on Sunday.

Oreshkin has previously been a sharp critic of Russia’s foreign policy. He emphasizes that Trump is probably the preferred candidate, but believes that the lack of congratulations is not a great policy. Only Putin wants to emphasize his own importance and independence.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov raised the lack of congratulations to journalists on Monday, the US website Politico reports.

– I want to say the following: We consider it appropriate to wait for the official summary of the election results, he said according to the Russian news agency Tass.

An important pillar of Russian foreign policy is the sovereignty of each nation. In this case, it will mean: As long as there is a dispute over the outcome of the elections in the United States, other countries will not influence the process.

– There are certain legal procedures ahead, which have been announced by the incumbent president. That is the difference. Therefore, we consider it appropriate to wait for the official announcement, added Peskov.

Obviously, it is paradoxical. After all, there is evidence that Russia wanted to influence the 2016 American elections. Using illegal means, the country did everything possible to tilt the election in Trump’s favor. But officially, Russia, along with China, defends a line in which other countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.

2. Empty promises

When Donald Trump won the election in 2016, cheers were high among the Russian authorities. They not only escaped from Hillary Clinton, a staunch critic of the Russian regime. They got an American president who spoke positively about Vladimir Putin.

But after four years, the Kremlin is left with empty promises, new sanctions and worsening conditions. This is how Tatjana Stanovaja sums up the last four years for the Carnegie think tank.

She points out that many in the Russian elite are desperate for the relationship between rhetoric and politics. Under Clinton, Russia would have faced a critical, self-righteous, and arrogant America. But in politics, it could have been less damaging than under Trump.

– The Russian elite still consider Trump “their candidate”. Mainly because it is against the system. But it has shown the Kremlin that it is incapable of turning intentions into politics, he writes.

Predictability

In 2016, the Russian authorities made it very clear that they preferred Trump. In 2020, they have chosen a different strategy.

Putin has emphasized, first and foremost, that this is up to the American citizens. He said this in a highly publicized interview with state-controlled television.

He thanked Trump for his kind words on Russia. However, he stressed that he can cooperate with a Biden administration. The president also noted that the Democratic Party has “socialist roots.”

The interview is interpreted as Russia preferring Trump. But that the authorities also see the benefits of a change of president in the United States. For example, it may be easier to negotiate new international agreements. This applies in particular to a new disarmament agreement.

“Biden’s foreign policy will be predictable for Russia,” Stanford University’s Steven Pifer wrote in The Moscow Times.

Furthermore, he writes that Moscow can now look forward to a different work climate. For example, what the president says and what the administration does will be the same.

– The Kremlin may not like the new policy, but they will understand it, he writes.