It’s true that some in Putin’s circle have been disappointed with the Trump administration. Under the influence of hawkish advisers such as John Bolton, Trump has pulled the United States out of two important arms control treaties with Russia and appears on his way to scrapping the accord limiting strategic nuclear weapons. He has complied with congressional mandates for sanctions on Russia, and — also under heavy bipartisan pressure — has reluctantly supplied Ukraine with defensive weapons.

Yet consider the gifts Trump has given Putin in the past 3½ years. Trump has all but wrecked Putin’s nemesis, the NATO alliance; this month he abruptly decided to withdraw more than a quarter of U.S. troops from Germany. He opened the door for Russian meddling in the Middle East, and to greater influence over Turkey, Egypt and even Israel. He has poisoned the once-close relations between Washington and Ukraine; President Volodymyr Zelensky has still not been invited to Washington.

Most importantly, Putin has learned that, as Bolton put it in a television interview last week, he can play Trump “like a fiddle.” The whole world watched as Putin induced Trump to announce at their 2018 Helsinki summit that he believed Putin’s denial that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. In private communications, according to Bolton, Putin managed to persuade Trump that Venezuela’s opposition leader was comparable to Hillary Clinton, and thus not worthy of support.

A reelected Trump could be expected to continue his campaign to restore Russia as a member of the Group of Seven nations, providing Putin with an enhanced global platform. He could pull the United States out of NATO once and for all. And he could advance Putin’s most important geopolitical goal, returning Ukraine to Russia’s sphere of influence, while opening the way for the lifting of U.S. and European sanctions on the Russian economy.