YOU BROKE HIM, YOU OWN HIM:

As the realization dawns on them that the Putin-friendly president cannot or will not lift past and future sanctions on the faltering Russian economy, as many had expected, they appear to be focusing their hopes--and fears--on the Hill.

Reports in the state-controlled media betray the Kremlin's apparent concern that President Trump will be impeached if the Democrats win control of the House. They describe the midterms as "the electoral death match." Evgeny Popov, the host of the Russian state TV show 60 Minutes, posed a provocative question to Sergei Kislyak, the former Russian ambassador to the United States: "Will anything change in November? Let's jokingly assume that we interfere and all goes well for Trump." Kislyak tergiversates about the potential outcome and cautiously warns Popov: "Let's not joke about that. Americans have lost their sense of humor."

Politician Sergei Stankevich opines that Trump is in dire straits, as the Republicans are poised to lose their House majority. He says the GOP's opponents criticize Trump's decidedly soft approach to Russia based on him being "charmed or covertly pressured by Putin." [...]

Stankevich argued with the state TV host, Olga Skabeeva, who repeated the popular Russian mantra "Trump is ours." Stankevich described Trump as a "psychologically unstable swashbuckler" and said Russian politics should prioritize "the containment of madness." He stressed that the sanctions bill "crossed two red lines" Americans avoided in the past by targeting Gazprom and Russia's sovereign debt. Stankevich cautioned that doing so would spiral into an all-out conflict between the United States and Russia.

Military expert Sergei Sudakov said the biggest threat facing Russia is the possibility of being disconnected from SWIFT, the coding system vital to international money transfers, which would affect the country's key foreign exchange earners in the oil and gas industry. Sudakov claimed that the Russians are actively developing a strategy of using Chinese hubs to circumvent Russia's potential loss of its access to SWIFT. MP Leonid Kalashnikov asserted that he is still glad that Trump was elected, because under Hillary Clinton Russia would have been cut off from SWIFT a long time ago.  

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