Russian state media has reportedly been ordered to stop fawning over President Trump, after a series of events that include the ouster of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump's unprecedented tweet saying something slightly negative about Moscow. Russia's news media "won't pour buckets of criticism on Trump, they just won't talk about him much," Konstantin von Eggert, a political analyst for Russia's only independent TV channel, told Bloomberg Politics. But Friday's newspapers in Russia seem to have at least reached for cups of criticism, says BBC News Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg, who read some of the days headlines.
Pravda, for example, criticized the contradictory remarks Trump has made about NATO, moving from "obsolete and useless" during the campaign to fully supportive today. "'As the saying goes,' the paper says, 'you need to be drunk to understand the true position of the U.S. president," Rosenberg read. Moskovsy Komsomolets asks, "Has Trump changed his mind about improving relations with Russia?" Vedomosti gives Trump the benefit of the doubt, blaming the "pressure that Trump is coming under in America over alleged links with Russia" for his inability to offer any concessions to Moscow right away.
If the Russian papers go too negative, of course, Trump can just dismiss them as "fake news" — bookmark the phrase "poddel'nyye novosti," just in case.
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