Top Kremlin propagandists on Russian TV have expressed their concerns around the ongoing January 6 Committee hearings in the U.S. potentially hurting Donald Trump's chances of running for re-election in 2024.
The hearings are being followed closely by pro-Putin journalists, who have bashed the Jan. 6 committee as "a step towards dictatorship," in the words of top Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, TV host on state-controlled Russia-1.
"Look at what's going on in America. A criminal prosecution against Trump and his followers is an obvious step towards a dictatorship," Solovyov said during his show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov last Friday, as quoted by Daily Beast journalist Julia Davis.
Meanwhile in Russia, they're closely watching the #January6thCommitteeHearings. Putin's top propagandists sound alarmed by what they're seeing, as they worry about what might happen to Trump and the midterms—and how all that might impact Russia & Ukraine. https://t.co/wPHMl6D0mZ pic.twitter.com/OQXOZy3P1z
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 14, 2022
Dmitry Abzalov, director of the Russian Center for Strategic Communications, followed up in the same tone.
As translated by Davis, Abzalov said: "The most crucial point is as follows: we need to understand what's going to happen in the electoral sense.
"The internal political component is extremely significant. The most important events on our political calendar are local elections in Great Britain as well as a very difficult situation in July and August, since the midterms in the U.S. actually start during summer months. Every Thursday they'll be lynching Trump in prime time."
It's clear that the political situation in the U.S. and Europe is being followed closely by Moscow, with Russian TV personalities expressing their wish Trump is re-elected in 2024. Davis reports that Russian state media are "relishing" the declining popularity of President Joe Biden in U.S., hoping the midterm elections will bring a change in policy that would affect the American approach to the war in Ukraine.
In this context, the Jan. 6 Committee hearing is perceived as a threat to a Trump administration returning to power and showing a friendlier side to Russia than Biden's.
"We're watching what's going on in the United States: an apparent escalation of political strife. Once again, they're trying to put Trump in prison, because the November elections are moving in a bad direction... Inflation isn't going down," said political scientist and professor of communications Dmitry Evstafiev, as quoted by Davis.
"Most interestingly, it isn't going down anywhere, not even in one country... with what and with whom are they planning to fight against us in Ukraine? Whom are they planning to use to break us down? Yes, they will maintain their current level of weapon deliveries, but for how long? For three to four months."
On the same day, Denis Davydov, a Russia-1 correspondent from the U.S., appeared on the news show Vesti calling the Jan. 6 hearing a "real show organized by Trump's enemies."
"Almost one thousand participants in the storming of the Capitol have been criminally charged, many of them have been convicted. As far as the Democrats are concerned, the main culprit is yet to be punished: Donald Trump. Therefore, the show must go on," Davydov said.
In the second hearing this month, more of Trump's former aides and advisers told of how they tried to warn the former president that his claims of vote rigging were false.
The hearing showed the way Trump proceeded with spreading the big lie on the 2020 election, defeating his aides' advice and eventually leading—the committee aims to prove—to the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
