Pauvre Charles.
One is reminded of the great Orwell quote- "Some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual can believe them."
Let us start with those most stubborn of things- facts.
The facts are these:
1. Vladimir Putin (VP) is an evil individual
2. VP was a member of the KGB First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence- with a focus on the US)
3. VP is intelligent (or at least quite cunning)
4. VP has a close an understanding of the US
5. VP has maintained power by consolidating political, economic, academic and media powers directly or indirectly. Some of this is "legal" if not moral, some is both illegal and immoral.
6. VP realizes that while the US may not see, or want to see, Russia as "The Enemy," that he and most Russians see the US as such
So we take that data set and ask ourselves which of the two candidates VP would prefer.
A. HRC politically (not ideologically) operates as Putin lite. This is a truth VP would recognize
1. She has an enemies list
2. She uses political capital to gain economic capital (The Clinton "Foundation") and vice versa (The Clinton "Foundation")
3. She had the support of the Democrat Machine, Washington Apparatchiks of both parties, Academia, Business, and the Media
B. A Clinton victory would leave VP facing an opponent with an internal power base analogous to the one he has in the Russian Republic
C. DJT is despised by Democrat Machine, Washington Apparatchiks of both parties, Academia, Business, and the Media.
So a
I. Clinton victory gives VP an opponent for whom many of the powers that be in the US and the World would go to the mattresses.
II. Trump victory puts in a place a man who will need to walk into the teeth of the storm to get the smallest thing accomplished. He will be beset by enemies long before he actually has to tangle with VP.
Of course VP wanted Trump. Without any need for collusion with him, VP's job is easier because he can count on the Left to continue in their now Century old task of being polezniye duraki- useful idiots for the Rodina.