While many Americans remain undecided as to our next president, Russian President Vladimir Putin prods us toward Donald Trump.

Should we go that way, we may find our country in a difficult choice between some very poor options regarding Russia.

Mr. Putin — whose military adventurism in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria has made Russia a threat again — has praised Mr. Trump as “the absolute leader in the presidential race” and a “really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt.”

By contrast, the Democratic front-runner — former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — is definitely on his blacklist.

Mr. Putin’s preferences stem from his perception of Mr. Trump as an isolationist who is likely to leave the Russian’s empire-rebuilding efforts largely unchallenged and from seeing Mrs. Clinton as a globalist likely to check those efforts every step of the way.

Consider:

● Mr. Putin’s propaganda has blamed Mrs. Clinton for helping instigate the Arab Spring, a series of uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East that he has linked to the current refugee crisis and heightened terrorism threat in Europe.

● Russia has also blamed the U.S. and Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, for helping inspire and support democratic movements in Georgia and Ukraine, which Mr. Putin has tried to stop. His worst fear is that Russia catches the bug, which would cost him his presidency, livelihood, and possibly his life.

● Moreover, Mrs. Clinton is seen in Russia as an advocate of NATO’s expansion into Ukraine and Georgia. Mr. Putin considers that expansion a direct threat to his regime.

What also may help the still undecided U.S. voters make up their minds is that each of the two front runners has said how they would deal with Mr. Putin should they win the race.

Mr. Trump has called Mr. Putin a “strong leader” with whom he would “get along very well.”

Conversely, Mrs. Clinton has quite correctly called Mr. Putin “someone that you have to continually stand up to because, like many bullies, he is somebody who will take as much as he possibly can unless you do.” Most famously and quite justifiably she previously likened Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea to actions of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. In 2014, Mr. Putin moved his troops into Crimea while claiming to be protecting ethnic Russians there.

Mrs. Clinton has promised to provide economic and military aide to Ukraine — a buffer state between NATO member states and Russia — where Mr. Putin has waged an unannounced war.

Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is focused on building a fence with Mexico and cutting immigration from the Muslim states and much less interested in the fate of Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

For him, “getting along” with Putin would take giving the latter carte blanche in Ukraine in exchange of a promise to steer clear of the Baltic States and other NATO members.

Mr. Putin may even honor such an agreement, for a time.

But with the Russian economy shrinking, Mr. Putin — with his track record of launching wars to distract his populace from economic woes — will eventually use his “green men” to try his luck in some other European country with a sizable Russian-speaking population. The current decline of Russia’s fossil fuel exports-dependent economy is mainly a result of historically low oil prices and systemic corruption and as such won’t be reversed even if the economic sanctions against Russia are lifted.

After Ukraine, Mr. Putin is likely to eye a relatively soft target in Eastern Europe such as the tiny state of Moldova or the larger Belarus as a victim of his next war show. Unlike the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, those two former Soviet “republics” are not NATO members and as such will be likely left to their own devices under Mr. Trump as president.

Once Mr. Putin runs out of soft targets on the former Soviet territory, he may well go after the Baltic states, which — unlike Moldova or Belarus — present a far greater challenge to Mr. Putin because they are NATO members.

And that’s where the real trouble begins.

That’s because Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty postulates that member states — and that includes the United States — will have to use their militaries to defend any member state if it is attacked.

So when Mr. Putin applies his Ukraine-tested “hybrid war” strategy in the Baltics, one of two things will happen — either NATO and the United States as its leading member will find themselves in a war with the nuclear-armed Russia or NATO falls apart as the European collective security system, clearing the way for further Russian aggression.

The good news is we can still prevent those scenarios by using our November ballots wisely.

Mike Sigov, a former Russian reporter in Moscow, is a U.S. citizen and a staff writer for The Blade. Contact him at: sigov@theblade, 419-724-6089, or on Twitter @mikesigovblade.

First Published March 20, 2016, 4:00 a.m.