Four years ago, Russian trolls and commentators openly supported Donald Trump for president of the United States; while commentators are less outspoken now given the reaction of Americans to Russian interference in the U.S. elections, Moscow is still supporting him via its troll factories, says the U.S.-based Russia analyst Kseniya Kirillova.
But at the same time and because it serves the Kremlin’s broader purposes, the analyst says, Moscow is now supporting both radicalism on the right, which it sees as Mr. Trump’s base, and radicalism on the left, which is opposed to him.