• Russia
• Ukraine

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly told Americans that he alone can end the war in Ukraine because he has a “very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a 28-point peace plan to make Moscow comply. Ahead of the pair’s April 2025 summit in Alaska, which occurred after Trump warned of unspecified “consequences” if Russia didn’t halt its attacks on Ukraine, Russia’s most popular talk-show host devoted an entire segment of his show to reminding viewers what Russia thinks of Trump’s threats. “We can destroy all of them with nuclear weapons,” Vladimir Solovyov said on air. “Let them think about this during our commercial break.” This isn’t fringe rhetoric; it’s primetime messaging on Russia-1, the flagship state TV channel. These and other segments have been preserved and documented by U.S. journalist Julia Davis for anyone who cares to look.

Trump is objectively the most popular foreign public figure in Russia, second only to Putin in raw media mentions. But it is not for the reasons the White House would prefer. Russian TV routinely features jokes about how Trump can be manipulated into doing things that clearly damage U.S. interests. On-air banter mocks his “psychological deadlines” for Russia to accept a cease-fire as meaningless. Television hosts and studio guests don’t conceal their satisfaction with the current U.S. administration, not just because it includes people like U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—whom Russian television has called “our girlfriend” for her frequently Kremlin-aligned views—but also because they see the United States’ geopolitical self-immolation as a boon that Moscow could never have engineered on its own. To Russians, Trump is the face—and often the punchline—of that process.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly told Americans that he alone can end the war in Ukraine because he has a “very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a 28-point peace plan to make Moscow comply. Ahead of the pair’s April 2025 summit in Alaska, which occurred after Trump warned of unspecified “consequences” if Russia didn’t halt its attacks on Ukraine, Russia’s most popular talk-show host devoted an entire segment of his show to reminding viewers what Russia thinks of Trump’s threats. “We can destroy all of them with nuclear weapons,” Vladimir Solovyov said on air. “Let them think about this during our commercial break.” This isn’t fringe rhetoric; it’s primetime messaging on Russia-1, the flagship state TV channel. These and other segments have been preserved and documented by U.S. journalist Julia Davis for anyone who cares to look.

Trump is objectively the most popular foreign public figure in Russia, second only to Putin in raw media mentions. But it is not for the reasons the White House would prefer. Russian TV routinely features jokes about how Trump can be manipulated into doing things that clearly damage U.S. interests. On-air banter mocks his “psychological deadlines” for Russia to accept a cease-fire as meaningless. Television hosts and studio guests don’t conceal their satisfaction with the current U.S. administration, not just because it includes people like U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—whom Russian television has called “our girlfriend” for her frequently Kremlin-aligned views—but also because they see the United States’ geopolitical self-immolation as a boon that Moscow could never have engineered on its own. To Russians, Trump is the face—and often the punchline—of that process.

Trump’s malleability is a constant theme in these discussions. He is not portrayed as a serious politician to contend with but as someone between a useful fool and an irritating obstacle. Russian state TV flatters Trump when convenient, mocks him otherwise, and threatens him when he steps out of line. During one panel discussion, a military pundit calmly explained that Russia should force Donald Trump to make decisions that weaken the United States while reminding viewers that Washington remains “an adversary.” Nevertheless, Trump insists that he has a “great” relationship with Putin, who supposedly “respects” him. But it is Putin’s government that micromanages the media outlets that openly ridicule Trump.

The disconnect between how Trump thinks he’s perceived in Russia and how Kremlin propagandists actually talk about him is, on one level, comedic. But it also reveals Russia’s contempt for Trump personally and for everything he represents as president of the United States. Moscow portrays today’s United States as a declining state whose leader is hilariously unaware and can be goaded, bribed, or bullied into doing whatever serves Russian interests. As a bonus, this leader is dismantling the world order that the Soviet Union and Russia spent decades trying to unsuccessfully undermine. Trump’s foreign-policy antics are genuinely entertaining to Russian propagandists and function as nightly reminders to viewers of who, in the Kremlin’s telling, is winning.

In early 2026, Russian propagandists swooned over Trump’s fixation on Greenland. Solovyov told his audience that he had been “right about Trump all along,” calling him the president who “totally destroyed the entire system of international relations.” Around the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised the “excellent” personal relationship between Putin and Trump, crediting their “mutual respect” for progress at talks in Alaska. However, Lavrov also warned that Russia would answer any militarization of Greenland with unspecified “military-technical measures.” The message is clear: Trump is preferred as the man dismantling the old order—right up until he tries to constrain Moscow. Then, the nuclear saber comes out for another rattle.

When Trump’s rhetoric crosses a line that Moscow has drawn, the tone shifts from flattery to open menace. Ahead of the Alaska summit, after Trump issued his warning of “consequences,” Solovyov reminded viewers that “no one has the authority to impose their will on the Russian president” and boasted that while the United States could retaliate, Russia “can do it faster and more effectively.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has played a similar role with his frequent comments on Telegram. There, he has invoked Russia’s “Dead Hand” automated nuclear retaliation system and told Trump to watch The Walking Dead, a zombie apocalypse series, to understand “how dangerous” it is. Nuclear escalation threats are not an exceptional topic in this discourse. Rather, it is a recurring theme and pressure tool that immediately reverberates in Western policymaking circles.

Although Trump is relentlessly mocked and derided for failing to quickly strong-arm Ukraine into surrendering after his inauguration, he is also encouraged and praised when behaving as Moscow expects. “What a generous man! The U.S. position has changed to normalcy with Trump’s arrival,” declared Olga Skabeyeva, co-host of the daily talk show 60 Minutes, after Trump’s first peace proposal, which would force Ukraine to accept Russian occupation and block it from joining NATO. Her co-host and husband, Evgeny Popov, chimed in: “Absolutely wonderful! All of Trump’s cabinet personally hates Zelensky. It’s a radical dream team!” In these moments, Trump is not lauded as a strong U.S. leader but as the unwitting architect of the world that Moscow wants.

You won’t understand this coverage if you imagine Russian state media as the equivalent of Fox or MSNBC, just under a different flag. It is closer to a nightly strategic briefing, carefully orchestrated inside the Kremlin’s media management rooms and disguised as infotainment. Panelists openly discuss “forcing” Trump into making choices that benefit Russia, using his desire for a “deal” as leverage in negotiations, and Russia’s ability to resist any pressure from Trump because, as one pundit put it, “America needs this peace more than we do.” When tactically necessary, the hosts and panelists pivot from praising Trump’s Russia-friendly position on Ukraine to reminding viewers that the United States remains Russia’s main adversary and that no matter what Trump does, Russia’s course is unchanged.

The uncomfortable implication for a U.S. audience is that Trump is not a singularly feared or respected figure. He is just the latest in a series of world leaders whose personal ego and domestic chaos the Kremlin can exploit. The more Trump insists that Putin “respects” him and will make a deal only with him, the more Russian television portrays Trump as someone who has already accepted Russia’s terms but doesn’t realize it yet. That gap in perception is the real story. Trump has built his Ukraine policy and much of his foreign-policy image on the idea that he alone can manage Putin because the Kremlin sees him as strong. But in Russia’s nightly public messaging, he appears as something else entirely: a convenient accelerant of U.S. decline, a negotiator who can be manipulated, and, when fitting, a punchline sandwiched between nuclear threats. If this is what “respect” looks like on Russian state TV, then any peace treaty that Trump may or may not sign will be written in Moscow—and Americans will be the last to know.