President Donald J. Trump appeared to finally lose patience with President Vladimir Putin over the weekend but Kremlin propagandists are desperately trying to downplay the intervention and hope that Trump is merely sounding off.
Pro-Kremlin TV hosts even cut the word “CRAZY” from their reporting on Trump’s rant as they struggled to report on the contretemps without criticizing either Trump or Putin.
On Sunday afternoon, just before boarding Air Force One, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin.” He was speaking after Russia’s latest barrage of deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities appeared to contradict claims made by him and his envoy Steve Witkoff, who have been trying to assure the world that the Russian president wants peace.
A few hours later, in a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers.”
On Tuesday, Trump doubled down in another Truth Social post that said, “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” State media outlet RT immediately discounted Trump’s rhetoric in a post on X, stating, ‘Putin doesn’t realize… he’s playing with fire!’ — Trump’s message leaves little room for misinterpretation. Until he posts the opposite tomorrow morning.”
Trump’s criticism caught the Kremlin and its tightly controlled state media completely off guard. After all, Putin’s murderous proclivities are a feature, not a bug, of his perennial presidency. Trump’s outburst placed Moscow’s propagandists in a bind, since they are not allowed to criticize the Russian president and have been praising America’s new direction of disregarding the ongoing genocidal invasion of Ukraine for the sake of resuming trade and economic relations with the invaders.
Walking a tightrope, state TV hosts omitted the word “crazy” in their reporting for their domestic audiences. Instead, they quoted solely the part of Trump’s tirade where he complained that “something has happened” to Putin, describing the American president’s comments as “rude.” They avoided any criticism of Trump and instead blamed his intelligence officials for not providing him with information that would “justify” Russia’s brutal attacks against the Ukrainians in the midst of wide-ranging negotiations with the United States. They also blamed the Western media for “egging Trump on” to impose harsh sanctions on Russia.
On Monday, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, followed suit with this approach. He praised Trump for his peacemaking efforts and wrote off his criticism to “an emotional overload” that prompted “emotional reactions.”
On Tuesday, State Duma member Alexey Zhuravlyov explained Russia’s strategy of courting Trump during his morning appearance on state TV show 60 Minutes. He explained that Russia should “kiss up to Trump” and resort to any means necessary to ensure that he is not aligned with the rest of the West. Zhuravlyov said, “If we have to clash with the West, it would be preferable that it’s not the collective West.”
Host Olga Skabeeva clarified, “You insist that we need to kiss up to Donald Trump… You’re in a playful mood!” Zhuravlyov insisted that he wasn’t joking and Russia’s strategy towards the American president is bearing fruit. He elaborated, “Look, here is how it works. Trump is making statements like, “We are going to impose sanctions and they will be horrible—but he is not imposing them.”
During the same program, pundit Spiridon Kilinkarov described Trump’s comments as “unseemly,” but stressed that Russia should pay no attention to what he says—and instead look at what he does. He noted, “He clearly doesn’t want a confrontation with Russia… What he says probably means something, but it’s not all that important.”
U.S. analyst Malek Dudakov asserted that despite Trump’s bluster, there is no reason for Russia to fear any additional American sanctions in the near future. In a post on X, RT dismissively referred to Trump’s threat of imposing additional sanctions, asking, “Will another call with Putin cool his jets?”
Zhuravlyov noted, “A very important phrase has surfaced in his social media posts, ‘Peace is more important than a ceasefire.’ This is the most important formula that we have been imposing on him. I don’t even know how we were able to push it on him!” He surmised, “I don’t know how we are managing to do it, but we’re talking him into agreeing with us—it’s a fact!” Zhuravlyov described “fighting for Trump” with Europe and surmised, “I’m sure that we will win in that regard.”
Putin’s pet propagandists often express their amusement that U.S. negotiators insist upon an unconditional ceasefire, while Russia is not the least bit interested in any cessation of hostilities, despite experiencing notable difficulties on the frontlines. During his Sunday show, state TV host Vladimir Solovyov said, “The West keeps talking about an immediate ceasefire. Why are they so stuck on an immediate ceasefire? Why would we stop?”
Solovyov explained that Russia’s interests lie elsewhere—far beyond Ukraine. He said, “What are the leaders of the U.S. and Russia talking about? About the future world order.” Moscow is apparently willing to let an insult or two go unnoticed, as long as Trump continues to act as an ally in jointly building the new world order in a fashion that favors Russia and not the West.
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