Russia has hung like a bad omen over this entire, ill-begotten election.

Here’s Donald Trump praising Vladimir Putin, and there’s Mike Pence echoing that praise. There’s Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid asking the FBI to look into Trump’s campaign advisors for nefarious Russia ties.

Here are Democrats, howling that the Kremlin is hacking this election in order to throw it to Trump. Here’s Hillary Clinton accusing Trump of being Putin’s puppet and Trump saying, “No puppet, no puppet.” There are the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, the voter roll hacks, the polling machine hacks, Cozy Bear, Fancy Bear, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Roger Stone, Julian Assange, John Podesta, and a whole host of characters that exist only because of one of the weirdest, long-running plot twists of this election is someone called Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

But that’s just the American side. What does this election look like from Moscow’s vantage point?

Kremlin television, from English-language RT to the actually watched domestic channels, has had a clear, orange favorite for about a year now. But does that mean Putin himself really wants Trump to win?

Read the rest at Business Insider.