FWIW, one of the talking heads on the teevee was opining this past week that the Russians – like virtually everyone else, pollsters and bookies and so on – figured Hillary was going to win; and figured it’d be in Russia’s best interest if she won a bruising contest that left her as weak as possible vis-a-vis the opposition that’d naturally try to block her at every turn the way they did Obama.
If so, then they wanted – or were resigned to – a Clinton presidency, and merely wanted her to take office with a minimal mandate amidst bad publicity.