From viewing Trump as a "hope" to considering him a "threat," Russia's hardliners have made a dramatic reversal in their stance. Trump's successive actions against Russian allies have plunged Moscow into deep unease.

When U.S. President Trump returned to the White House last year, some Russian hardliners held a cautiously optimistic view, hoping his unpredictability and deal-making nature would benefit Moscow regarding the Ukraine issue.

However, his strikes against Iran have now led many to see him as a growing threat to Russia itself, questioning whether Trump remains the pragmatic, potentially Russia-friendly strongman willing to engage in realpolitik deals they once believed him to be.

Some hawks are publicly urging Moscow to abandon U.S.-mediated peace talks on Ukraine and instead double down on the battlefield. They argue that the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks preceding the American-Israeli airstrikes were a cynical deception, demonstrating that Washington cannot be trusted.

"An unprincipled America is a threat to the entire world," said nationalist businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, whose wife is a senior Kremlin official. "This is the America we are trying to negotiate with on Ukraine. Yes, it wants a weak Europe. But it also wants a weak Russia."

Influential war blogger Boris Rozhin, known online as "Colonel Cassad" with nearly 800,000 followers on Telegram, described Trump as a monster driven mad by a sense of impunity.

"Seriously expecting to reach any agreement or deal with this [monster] is either foolishness or treason," Rozhin commented.

Prominent scholar Andrei Sidorov was even more vehement, stating on national television that Trump is "a dangerous man" and expressing regret that the U.S. President survived an assassination attempt in July 2024 and was re-elected later that year.

"Now we understand who is in charge of the world," Sidorov said. "Look at what Trump is doing now, step by step, with almost no one to stop him. To be honest—Russia is deeply stuck in the Ukrainian quagmire. Almost all our energy now is spent dealing with the Ukraine issue. And our main adversary [the U.S.] is acting as the intermediary in these talks."

The Kremlin still hopes Trump can help end the Russia-Ukraine war on terms favorable to Russia and facilitate a broader, profitable reconciliation between the U.S. and Russia. It condemned the U.S. actions as "unprovoked aggression" but avoided direct criticism of Trump personally, offering Iran no substantive material assistance beyond diplomatic support.

The Kremlin also stated that continuing the Ukraine peace talks is in its own interest—even though the situation with Iran has cast uncertainty over the timing and location of the next round of negotiations.

The Kremlin's statements on Ukraine signal that, for now at least, it will continue a delicate balancing act—maintaining a sufficiently good relationship with Trump to keep him engaged on Ukraine, while publicly opposing policies it disagrees with.

Russian and Western analysts believe that, given Russia has imported, reverse-engineered, and begun its own production of Iranian-designed drones, Moscow's ability to provide significant help to Tehran at this stage is limited.

Some also see potential benefits for Russia from the Iran incident. Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev suggested that rising oil prices—though not yet at the level needed for Moscow to balance its budget—could help ease the strained state finances, while the discount on Russian oil sales to countries like India might decrease.

Some Russian analysts believe that if the Middle East conflict persists, the supply of U.S. weapons and ammunition to Ukraine could be reduced, with air defense missiles being redirected to Gulf states, and overall U.S. attention and support for Ukraine waning.

However, the hawks' fierce rhetoric does reflect genuine unease within Russia's security and political elite. They perceive an increasingly aggressive U.S. President weakening Russia's influence on the world stage, precisely when Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and unable to defend its interests as it did during the Soviet era.

The hawks claim Trump is systematically eliminating Russia's allies. They point to the fate of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—overthrown by opposition forces in December 2024, with its leaders later hosted by Trump at the White House; Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro—detained at gunpoint by U.S. forces in January this year; and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—assassinated in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike last weekend.

The fate of long-time ally Cuba, also a target of Washington, causes them concern as well.

Trump's critics accuse him of being too soft on Moscow, mistakenly bringing Putin "in from the cold" during last year's Alaska summit. But some Russian hardliners are alarmed by Trump's removal of key Russian allies, fearing he might one day even turn his focus towards Russia—although Trump has never indicated this is part of his agenda.

"If Iran holds on, everything might change; if it collapses, we are next," ultranationalist philosopher and hardline ideologue Alexander Dugin told his followers. Dugin once saw Trump as a great hope for Russia.

"When Trump was loyal to the original 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) ideology, we had common ground. As he rapidly abandons MAGA and aligns with neoconservatives, that common ground is quickly disappearing. It's better to draw a clear line with the Trump of today," Dugin said.