Is the Trump-Putin bromance over... again?

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may have been closer than any of their predecessors, but it would seem their bromance has hit the rocks.

The US president raged last week that Putin "wants to go all the way, just keep killing people" and admitted he had been unable to use his "great relationship" with the Russian leader to secure a peace deal or ceasefire in Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

Trump's "bromance" with Putin has had its "ups and downs", said Marc Bennetts in The Times, but with their "trading of compliments", "mutual massaging of egos" and "hours spent on the phone" together, the two presidents seemed to be getting on well.

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But in March, Trump said he was "pissed off" with Putin over the attacks on Ukrainian civilians. In May, their relationship "seemed to be on the mend", but now Trump has lost patience again and complained that Washington gets "a lot of bullshit thrown at us" by the Russian leader.

Senior figures in Moscow are similarly "exasperated" by the US president and his "mood swings" and "wild oscillations" on Ukraine.

As for Trump, he "at last seems to have realised" that Putin has been "playing him for a fool", said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Telegraph, and that "all the positive chat" from the Russian is to "create inertia" in Trump's "thought processes".

But if the US president is as "upset" as his "expletives suggest", the Russians should be "concerned". After the attacks on Iran, Trump now knows his air power can "easily penetrate" Russian air defences. So Putin won't want to encourage him to "flex this muscle".

This change of mood between the two leaders may be hardest for Trump, because, as couple's therapist Tracy Ross told Buzzfeed's Brittany Wong, for years he's "unhealthily idealised" and "seemed to aspire" to be like Putin, without seeming to notice that the relationship was "unrequited".

Trump stayed in "denial" so he could "maintain his version of who Putin is" and "what their relationship was". But in a "toxic relationship dynamic", one person often "ignores, justifies or reasons away" the detrimental even "destructive" behaviour of the other.

What next?

Although Trump may have "finally got the message", said The Times, what is yet to be determined is how this supposed "moment of clarity" will affect his policy on Ukraine. "The answer may well turn out to be: not that much."

On Monday, the US leader announced that Washington would again start sending weapons to Kyiv, but the news was met with a curt response from the Kremlin, warning that the move did not "align with attempts to promote a peaceful resolution" to the conflict.

Trump has warned in the past that he could impose secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil and gas, but there's "no indication" that he intends to "follow through on the threat".

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a summit in Malaysia today.