President Putin denies that Russia welcomes Britain’s vote to leave the EU – but it offers a possibility of weakened sanctions and a shift in power relations

What should you drink to mark Britain leaving the European Union? That was the question pondered by Russian state television’s ringmaster, Dmitry Kiselev, in a recent, heavily ideological weekly dispatch.

“A glass of Scotch? But then you might been seen as a separatist,” the presenter mused. “A German beer? But then people will think you support Merkel and her migration policies, which are what led to the collapse of the EU.”

In the end, Kiselev decided that the best way to celebrate Brexit is to mimic the EU itself: toss drinks from many different countries into a bucket and mix them all together. The resulting unidentifiable slop would be the perfect thing with which to toast Britain’s departure.

This view of the EU as a bastion of wayward “political correctness” that pushes against healthy, traditional values and dilutes national sovereignty might sound as if it comes from a Ukip campaign leaflet, but it has also long been Moscow’s take on the bloc. This, together with the fact that the EU has imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, has led to a sense that Moscow would like to see the bloc weakened.

Prior to the vote, there had been suggestions from Remain campaigners that Putin was the one major world leader who would welcome a vote for Brexit, something the president dismissed out of hand.



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“We closely followed the voting but never interfered or sought to influence it,” said Putin the day after the vote. Brexit, said Putin, was a result of irritation over Britain subsidising weaker economies, and “the British government’s self-assuredness and supercilious attitude to life-changing decisions in their own country and Europe in general”.

Putin said claims prior to the referendum that Russia was backing Brexit were “an inappropriate attempt to influence public opinion,” and said it was “all the more inappropriate” to discuss Russia’s position after the vote: “This is truly a low level of political discourse,” Putin said.

Nevertheless, there has been a distinct whiff of schadenfreude in the Moscow air over the past weeks, and indeed some leading officials have openly celebrated the UK vote.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, wrote on Twitter in the aftermath of the vote that with Britain out of the EU, there would be much less pressure for sanctions against Russia. Both the US and EU introduced a range of sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in east Ukraine. The sanctions were rolled over for a further six months in June, but diplomats say getting unanimity for a further rollover in the bloc will be hard work. Britain, along with Germany, had been one of the toughest voices in favour of sanctions, while countries such as Italy, Greece and Hungary are keen to renew trade and financial links.



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“It’s no secret that the Russians have been working diligently … to try to persuade individual EU member states to object to the renewal of sanctions,” the foreign minister, Philip Hammond, told a parliamentary committee on Thursday. “I fear that in future such situations, an EU without Britain as an influential member may be less likely to take robust action and to sustain robust action against Russia.”

Few Russians in business circles have expressed joy over Brexit, and many have said its negative effects on global markets can only be bad for Russia as well. Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, however, said the knock-on economic effects on Russia would are likely to be minimal, and many think the political dividend overshadows this.



“The economic consequences are not yet evident,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a host and commentator on international affairs for TV Rain. “But what is evident is that the EU is going to be completely occupied by Brexit for at least two years. It undermines the position of one of the biggest foes of Moscow and leaves the EU in the hands of much more friendly nations.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Armenia’s President Sargsyan, President Lukashenko of Belarus, Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev and Kyrgyzstan’s President Atambayev after a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union in Moscow in 2014. Photograph: Reuters

The former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote on Twitter that the vote to leave the EU was “a giant victory for Putin’s foreign policy objectives”.



In recent years, Putin has been keen to push his own Eurasian Union as an alternative to the EU. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia have joined the bloc. Getting Ukraine on board for the project was key to Putin’s vision, but this was scuppered when the Maidan revolution toppled president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Critics have called the Eurasian Union an updated version of the Soviet Union, but Putin likes to think of the blocs as equals.



Boris Titov, Russia’s business ombudsman, wrote on Facebook in the aftermath of the Brexit vote that the UK exiting Europe could herald a major shift of power in the Eurasian landmass in the coming years.

“UK out!!! In my opinion, the most important long-term consequence of all this is that the exit will take Europe away from the Anglo-Saxons, that is, from the US,” he wrote. “This is not the independence of Britain from Europe, but the independence of Europe from the USA.”

In a somewhat convoluted geopolitical analysis that sees an “Anglo-Saxon” axis of Britain and the US dominating Europe, Titov said the British exit meant that within a decade there would be a “united Eurasia”.

This may sound fanciful, but in the meantime, the Kremlin is likely to continue to welcome discord inside the EU and the ascent of Eurosceptic parties, many of which have a friendlier line towards the Kremlin than current national governments.

“During the 1960s and 70s the Soviet Union had a policy of trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe, and between different European countries,” said Von Eggert. There is the same policy now, but it turns out you don’t have to do anything, and it has happened on its own.”