REPORT Brexit is Good News for Russia, but a Headache for NATO

Britain’s exit from the EU will undercut its role as America’s key ally in Europe, leaving the continent more divided and distracted -- just the way Putin likes it.

The Kremlin has spent years trying to create fissures within the NATO alliance and the European Union, but with little success. Now Britain’s vote to leave the EU fulfills Putin’s wish for a more divided Europe, one potentially preoccupied with its own disagreements while London’s influence recedes.

“They are drinking copious amounts of vodka in the Kremlin today,” Derek Chollet, a former senior advisor at the Pentagon, told Foreign Policy.

“What makes it depressing is that this was an unforced error,” said Chollet, now at the German Marshall Fund. “Putin has been trying to force divisions in the West, but he actually hasn’t been succeeding that well. This is a benefit to him without him having to do anything.”


Russian politicians celebrated the vote, hoping it would sabotage the continent’s resolve when it comes to enforcing the sanctions levied against Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine.

“Without Britain, there won’t be anybody in the EU to defend sanctions against us so zealously,” Sergey Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, wrote on Twitter.

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