November 09, 2026

Russia Watches US Midterms


Russia Watches US Midterms
Trying to keep a cool head. The Russian Life files.

Russian media, unsurprisingly, followed the U.S. midterm elections closely. Within hours of the results, outlets ran comments from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who kept to generalities.

“Of course, safeguarding the interests of the Russian Federation with regard to Ukraine cannot be tied to the state of affairs in the USA. Our interests will be safeguarded in any case,” he said. Peskov also noted that Trump still held presidential authority.

Vladimir Solovyov, Russia’s chief propagandist, was more colorful on his show, as usual. He made no predictions, preferring to criticize Trump and opine on Americans. In the U.S., Solovyov declared, “the gas tank has defeated the TV... You can tell American voters whatever you want, but if gas prices at the pump are so high that they’re pulling their hair out, they’ll vote against you. Any talk about how wonderful Trump is, about space flights, or the moon – none of that matters. Americans count the money in their wallets.”

So far, official reaction to the Republican defeat has been restrained and pragmatic, likely because Moscow does not want to look dependent on American domestic politics. How alarmed the Kremlin actually is remains hard to say. A Democratic-controlled Congress, after all, makes a convenient scapegoat if peace talks collapse.

RBC – once a respected media outlet, now fully loyal to the government – ran a story headlined “The Kremlin Assesses Whether a Defeat for Trump’s Party Would Hinder Peace in Ukraine.” The article offered no answer, but the framing said plenty: Russia wants peace, the message goes, and its optimism is fading.

Independent analysts were no more certain whether a weakened Trump would be good or bad news for Russia. Alexander Baunov took a different angle: “From Trump’s defeat, Putin surely draws a conclusion not about the strength of the American system, but about its weakness,” he wrote. “In Russia, China, and North Korea, the head of state faces no threat of losing parliamentary elections. This means he’s doing everything right, while Trump would like to, but cannot.”

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