“President Vladimir Putin, unlike his Western European counterparts, who quickly posted congratulations on Saturday, had not issued a statement on President-elect Joe Biden even as night fell in Moscow on Sunday. Four years earlier, the Kremlin rushed out a message for President Trump within hours of the American television networks calling the race on election night,” the New York Times reports.
“The early signs indicate that Mr. Putin is preparing for a deeply adversarial relationship with America’s next president. While Mr. Trump never delivered on Russian hopes of rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, his America-first foreign policy dovetailed with the Kremlin’s desire to weaken the Western alliance and to expand Russian influence around the world.”

