The Poor State of the Putin-Clinton Relationship

Posted: August 23rd, 2016

By Hannah Thoburn

Hannah Thoburn is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute, focusing on Russian and Ukrainian politics. She tweets at @HannahThoburn.

It is no secret that the Kremlin is not terribly enthused about the idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency. Russia’s alleged involvement in the computer hacks of the Democratic National Committee made that much clear.

A quick look around Russian news sites – most of which are owned and controlled by the Kremlin and its friends – is illustrative of the Kremlin’s opprobrium towards her. At tabloid-esque LifeNews and Komosmolskaya Pravda, conspiratorial speculation about Hillary Clinton’s health is plumped with headlines like, “Thrombosis, heart attack, Alzheimers. What threatens Hillary Clinton?” Conspiracy theories thoroughly debunked in the United States have new life in Russia with articles like “Five Mysterious Deaths of Hillary Clinton’s Opponents”.

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