(CNN) The Cold War was supposed to have ended a quarter of a century ago.

But Russia is commanding center stage in a presidential election for the first time in decades and President Vladimir Putin is being portrayed as a sinister puppeteer looming over the bitter contest between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Democrats have blamed him for orchestrating a huge cyberespionage operation using stolen and leaked emails to sow chaos and distrust in America's democratic process ahead of November's election. Putin's even been accused of cultivating one of the candidates in the election -- Trump -- as an unwitting agent to further his quest to strangle US global power.

A decision by Putin to further foreign policy goals by intervening directly in a US election would cross a line rarely approached in Soviet times. And it begs the question of why Russia would take this perilous extra step.

The Soviet Union, though possessing the intelligence capacity to meddle in a US election, had always feared such a move could backfire and hurt a preferred candidate, said William Courtney, a former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia.

"(The current Russian leadership) may think there is a low-cost/high-payoff way to increase the perception that the system over here is chaotic and is not reliable," said Courtney, now with the Rand Corporation.

Former CIA covert operations officer Mike Baker told CNN's Brooke Baldwin, "The long game here is not so much they are trying to influence who actually wins this particular election but the long game is more of a traditional psy ops battle where they are trying to erode trust in the electoral process."

Trump: Putin has been a leader

Though Russia might feel it gains with its meddling regardless of who wins, it might not hurt that Trump has been so effusive toward Putin and so critical of current US policy toward Moscow that treats him as a threat. Indeed, in an unprecedented move for a major party nominee, Trump has lined himself up squarely with a foreign leader who sees himself as a US adversary.

Trump appeared to indicate at a forum televised by NBC last week that Putin's flattery had prompted him to look on the Russian leader favorably.

"If he says great things about me, I'm gonna say great things about him. I mean, the man has very strong control over a country," Trump said, while stressing he did not like the Russian political system.

"But certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

Photos: Cult of Putin While his nation waded deeper into the Syrian civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, spent his 63rd birthday on the ice Wednesday, October 7, playing hockey with NHL stars and various Russian officials and tycoons in Sochi. For years, Russia's leader has cultivated a populist image in the Russian media. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a cat as he inspects housing built for victims of wildfires in the village of Krasnopolye, in a region in southeastern Siberia, Russia, on Friday, September 4. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev jokingly toast at a lunch during a meeting at the Black Sea resort in Sochi, Russia, on Sunday, August 30. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin exercises during his meeting with Medvedev on August 30. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin sits in a bathyscaphe as it plunges into the Black Sea along the coast of Sevastopol, Crimea, on Tuesday, August 18. Putin went underwater to see the wreckage of an ancient merchant ship that was found in the end of May. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a Persian leopard cub in February 2014 at a breeding and rehabilitation center in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Perhaps the most important vote in Russia's public selection of a new Olympic mascot was cast when Putin said he wanted a funky leopard to represent the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin holds a pike he caught in the Siberian Tuva region of Russia on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin enjoys some fishing during his vacation to the Tuva region on July 20, 2013. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin submerges on board Sea Explorer 5 bathyscaphe near the isle of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland on July 15, 2013. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin studies a crane during an experiment called Flight of Hope on September 5, 2012, in which he piloted a hang glider, aiming to lead the birds into flight. It's part of a project to save the rare species of crane. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin takes part in a training session for young ice hockey players before the "Golden Puck" youth tournament final in Moscow on April 15, 2011. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin rides a Harley-Davidson to an international biker convention in southern Ukraine on July 14, 2010. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin The Russian president aims at a whale with an arbalest (crossbow) to take a piece of its skin for analysis at Olga Bay on August 25, 2010. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin A wetsuit-clad Putin embarks on a dive to an underwater archaeological site at Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula on August 10, 2011. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Famed for his love of martial arts, Putin throws a competitor in a judo session at an athletics school in St. Petersburg on December 18, 2009. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin during his vacation in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin swims the butterfly during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Assisted by a Russian scientist, Putin fixes a satellite transmitter to a tiger during his visit to the Ussuriysky forest reserve of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Far East on August 31, 2008. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin carries a hunting rifle in the Republic of Tuva on September 3, 2007. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin A shirtless Putin fishing in the headwaters of the Yenisei River in the Republic of Tuva on August 13, 2007. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Cult of Putin Putin in the cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber jet at a military airport on August 16, 2005, before his supersonic flight. Hide Caption 21 of 21

Comments like those are one reason that some Trump critics have accused the billionaire of being duped by the cunning former KGB operative in the Kremlin.

"In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation," wrote former deputy CIA director Michael Morrell, who now supports Clinton, in a New York Times article in August.

Other Trump comments appearing to call into question US security guarantees towards NATO nations and apparent openness to Putin's views on the sovereignty of Crimea are also factors that helped convince 50 Republican national security officials to sign a letter last month denouncing Trump.

Obama takes swipe at Republicans

Clinton has seized on the issue to attack her presidential opponent. She charged recently that Trump's praise for Putin marked him out as unpatriotic and reckless, as she tried to bolster her case that her surging rival was unfit to sit in the Oval Office.

"It's beyond one's imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin," Clinton told reporters.

The new Red Scare? Russia ups role in world events, US elections https://t.co/k9Rq3rqIus — Ram Ramgopal (@RamCNN) September 15, 2016

President Barack Obama, fresh from his own latest confrontation with the Russian leader at the G20, also weighed in on Monday.

"Think about what's happened to the Republican Party. They used to be opposed to Russia and authoritarianism, fighting for freedom and fighting for democracy," Obama said, campaigning for Clinton in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

JUST WATCHED Obama: I am really into electing Hillary Clinton Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama: I am really into electing Hillary Clinton 01:19

"And now their nominee is out there praising a guy, saying, 'He's a strong leader because he invades smaller countries, jails his opponents, controls the press and drives his economy into a long recession.'"

Obama's intervention sparked an angry response by Moscow -- which Democrats will likely welcome, since it plays into their claim that the Kremlin would prefer a friendly Trump rather than a hostile Clinton as president.

US computer systems infiltrated?

"Unfortunately, (when) we see the continuing manifestation of such a blatant Russophobia, we can only express regret here," Putin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday in comments carried by the TASS news agency.

Peskov bemoaned the "Russian card and the card of our president" being used as "an almost decisive one in the US electoral process."

JUST WATCHED Officials: Ready to blame Russia for election hacks Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Officials: Ready to blame Russia for election hacks 01:44

The US government has provided no concrete evidence that the Russian government is targeting the US elections. The Kremlin has vehemently denied involvement.

But it is accepted wisdom in Washington that entities probably linked to the Russian state but with plausible distance from official channels have infiltrated US computer systems and facilitated the leak of embarrassing emails

Recent reports of email infiltration include former secretary of state Colin Powell. And the World Anti-Doping Agency accused Russia of being behind an alleged breach of US Olympic athlete's medical files.

The Democratic National Committee has also been a target, and many party stalwarts fear that more embarrassing revelations, perhaps directly targeting the Democratic nominee are on the way.

Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution, who co-authored a book on Putin, said that the motivation behind the hacks was to show the outside world, including Russians, that the US political system was hardly a paragon of democracy and good governance in order to undermine the moral authority of Washington overseas.

Putin wants to restore Russia's status

Paraphrasing the argument that Russia could make after a chaotic election, Hill said: "Look at what is happening in the United States -- do you really think this, this picture that we are seeing here, is any better than any of the other systems around the word? What gives these people, who are engaged in this kind of dirty politics, the right to make pronouncements?"

The Russian president has also made no secret that his core political project is undermining Western political, diplomatic and military institutions in order to restore what he sees as Russia's rightful place as a global great power. He's also made clear his belief that the US and its European allies have conspired against Russian interests in Georgia, Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

Putin also harbors personal animosity towards Clinton in particular, after accusing her of intervening directly against his party in parliamentary elections in Russia in 2011 while she was secretary of state.

But the election intrigue is not just a reflection of the estranged nature of Russia-US relations, and of the fact that Putin has many political, foreign policy and personal reasons to see an intervention in US democracy as a winning strategy.

Putin has 'narrowed the gap'

It is also likely a sign of increasing Russian confidence and influence on the world stage, as Putin confounds the efforts of Western nations to isolate and ostracize him after the annexation of Crimea.

Russia, after inserting itself back in the Middle East, has become a crucial and often obstructive partner in US efforts to broker a Syria ceasefire.

In Beijing earlier this month, Putin was ubiquitous at the G20 summit in Beijing after once being scorned by the group for his actions in Ukraine.

And despite its hobbled economy, over reliance on energy sources and claims that Putin has established a brutal, authoritarian state, Russia still appears to be confounding Western predictions that it would become no more than a decaying regional super power.

"(Putin) has narrowed the gap or maybe even exceeded expectations between Russian's power potential, its latent capability as it recovered economically and what the world system and certainly the Western system --- the political, societal and economic system -- had relegated it to," said Matthew Rojansky, a Russia scholar at the Wilson Center.