MOSCOW. March 5 (Interfax) - Russia would be more interested in seeing Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, said Valery Garbuzov, the deputy director at the Institute of U.S. and Canada.

"The fact is that all candidates - Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and John McCain - are being critical of Russia. Another question is to what extent they are being so. John McCain is being most critical, the second one is Clinton, and Obama is more or less flexible. Given what they are now talking about, Obama is likely to be the most favorable for Russia," he told Interfax on Wednesday.

However, the current positions of the U.S. presidential candidate "mean nothing as they might change their positions in the future," he said.