I think several issues seem to have been conflated here. I'm going to dismiss the Bolivian comment as something not directly relevant to UK or EU politics. Obama - or Trump - probably arent going to change many minds in the UK or EU, unless their public comments about issues outside of the US antagonises people. They just clarifies the US position. (I might be more concerned if, for example, there was evidence of Trump trying to liaise to unite Johnson and Farage in private messages.) With respect to the Russian angle there are two aspects to look at separately. Firstly, the oligarchs: some may be friends of Putin others are not; however, I'm not sure that's relevant. What is alleged is that they've given money to the Tory party; as I'm sure this isn't for purely altruistic reason one assume they expect something in return for this, even if it's just to give the Tories an advantage over other parties. Secondly, we have state operations. The Russians are known to be active in cyber warfare and allegedly were active using social media (which research seems to show does sway opinions) during the 2016 referendum and almost certainly were the ones who hacked the DNC email accounts during the 2016 US presidential election. What was their aim? I suspect Putin just wanted to cause confusion in western political systems to give him space to manoeuvre. We certainly have confusion in Europe with Brexit, and the US seems to have a president making fairly random decisions around the world leaving everyone wondering what he'll do next, plus he's now involved in an impeachment process. In the meantime Putin seems to be increasing his influence in the middle east, a major source of western oil supplies.
Michael Ixer ● 2554d