In August, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) surveyed Russians about who they would vote for in the US presidential election. Thirty-seven percent said Donald Trump, versus only 8% for Kamala Harris. Four out of 10 surveyed would not have voted. Another 15% were unsure.

A different survey, conducted in October by the Russian Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), showed that 65% of Russians had never even heard of Harris.

This happened even though Vladimir Putin has publicly endorsed both Democrats, Biden and Harris. In February, he said that another Biden term would ultimately benefit Russia more since he is a more predictable politician.

“He is a more experienced person, he is predictable, he is a politician of the old school. But we will work with any US leader who is trusted by the American people,” Putin told the state TV channel Russia-1.

In September, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin mocked Harris, “she laughs so expressively and infectiously. It shows that she doing good,” reported the Kommersant daily. He also added that, given her seeming good spirits, he hopes she will not impose as many sanctions as Trump did.

Dmitri Medvedev, the ex-president and now deputy security council chairman, posted on his Telegram channel that the US election is not important to Russia, arguing that “the candidates’ positions fully reflect a bipartisan consensus on the need to defeat our country.”

His comments on Harris were less civil than Putin’s. Medvedev described her as “foolish, inexperienced and easily controlled and [she] will be scared of everyone around her.” He added that if she wins the election, it will be her entourage and the “Obama family” who actually wield power.

Meanwhile, Medvedev is skeptical of Trump’s claim that he will stop the war in Ukraine.

“He will not stop the war,” Medvedev wrote. “Not in a day, three days or three months. And if he actually tries, he might end up like JFK.”

Russia’s elections czar, Ella Pamfilova, gave an interview to the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in which she shared her views on the US election.

She claimed the US electoral system is “structured in such a way that citizens’ rights are systematically violated at every stage of the electoral process.” Pamfilova criticized mail-in voting in particular, stating that it “does not guarantee that each ballot will be received by the electoral commission… in a form that can be deemed valid.”

“The possibility of manipulating mail-in votes is the main reason why the US has not abandoned this outdated practice,” said Pamfilova.

Though the Russian state media has tried to create the appearance of criticizing both candidates, they clearly have a pro-Trump narrative.

On the November 3 news broadcast on Russia’s largest TV channel, Channel One, host Vitaly Eliseev appeared against a backdrop featuring the White House with Trump arriving in a garbage truck, Biden standing nearby and Harris dancing. Eliseev told the story of an Instagram-famous pet squirrel named Peanut, which was euthanized by New York environmental authorities after being seized during a raid on its owner’s home, emphasizing that the incident had taken place in a Democrat-run state. There was then a graphic of Harris kicking the squirrel.

Nearly all the reporting on the US election in the broadcast centered around criticism of Harris. The Channel One correspondent said that before her presidential bid this year, Americans knew her only for her low approval ratings, love of dancing and, echoing Putin, “infectious laugh.” He added that Harris has “completely failed to bring order to the US southern border.”

The reporter offered no criticism of Trump’s policies, but he mentioned the two assassination attempts against him during the race were mentioned. He also talked about Trump’s stunt driving a garbage truck after Biden referred to Trump supporters as “garbage” – without any explanation of the context around Biden’s comment. Later, Eliseev added that this incident followed a “gaffe by Trump supporters,” without offering any further details.

One of the Kremlin’s chief propagandists, Dmitri Kiselyov, stated on his November 3 show on Russia-1 that the US election has “put all global politics on hold.” He also called the US “the main initiator and sponsor of the war in Ukraine.”

“The next [US] president has the power to accept reality: there will not be peace solely on US terms,” said Kiselyov.

In the same broadcast, a Russia-1 correspondent described the election as a battle between “feminism and patriarchy,” focusing on the gender divide among Americans. He showed a Harris campaign ad where women hide from their husbands that they had voted for Harris.

“The ad encourages American women to stage a women’s rebellion and not to listen to their husbands on election day,” the correspondent remarked with irony. “The right choice is to vote for Harris and [vice presidential candidate Tim] Walz – victory for the Democrats is worth deceiving your husband.”

Russia-1 also featured a New York resident originally from Belarus who had attended a pro-Trump rally. He described Trump as “the helmsman” of America and compared him with Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. Lukashenko, who has led Belarus for 30 years, is often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.”

Despite active news coverage of the US election, most Russians are only vaguely aware of it, according to the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster. Still, awareness is higher than in 2020 but lower than in 2016.

More than half of respondents do not have a clear opinion about which candidate would be better for Russia: 46% said it does not matter to them and 11% were unsure.