Russia

President [Trump]'s reticence ahead of [a potential] meeting with Putin is misguided...What Trump is signaling now by staying silent is that...he's actually a weak president, which, from the Russian perspective, is the best thing they can hope for.

Russia's desire to undermine American democracy is related to its inability to match up to the military and economic power of the West...Given that imbalance, the Russian point of view is that you don't have to be on top, you don't have to win...You just have to push everyone else down a little bit.