"Putin starting to wonder if his puppets are smart enough to pull this off."
That was the fake-news headline offered up last week by The New Yorker's humor writer Andy Borowitz.
The Russians aren't laughing. President Donald Trump might not be Russian President Vladimir Putin's puppet, but Russian officials are indeed starting to wonder whether the new U.S. commander in chief can effectively function in the White House.
"He's dancing on thin ice. It's a risky game," former Russian deputy foreign minister Andrei Fedorov told NBC News, referring to Trump's increasingly heated attacks on the legitimacy of the U.S. press.
Russian diplomats and members of Putin's staff are preparing a psychological evaluation of Trump for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the NBC report stated.
The evaluation, in anticipation of a meeting between Trump and Putin, offers "a psychological portrait of Trump, especially based on this last two to three months, and the last weeks," Fedorov said. The Russian politico added:
"Trump is not living in a box -- he is living in a crowd. He should listen to the people around him, especially in the areas where he is weak."
NBC's Bill Neely asked former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov if Russian officials were laughing at the seeming chaos in the new U.S. administration.
"Absolutely not," Kasyanov said. "Not laughing. The situation is very serious."
Kasyanov, it should be noted, is a Putin opponent whose reputation was tarred last year with the mysterious release of a "sex sting" video purportedly showing him in flagrante delicto with a Russian-born British woman who is a vocal critic of the Russian government. (Rumors have swirled for months that Putin compromised the U.S. president with similar tactics when Trump visited Russia in 2013.)
The U.S. intelligence community determined late last year that Russian hackers released stolen Democratic National Committee emails and spread disinformation in an effort to benefit Trump's presidential campaign. The New York Times reported last week that the Trump campaign had "repeated" contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials last year. Trump called the report "fake news" and insisted the Times is a "failing" company.
Putin's government had hoped that the new American administration would undo economic sanctions against Russia, but it now fears that press revelations about Trump and his team will paralyze U.S.-Russian relations.
The scandal over Trump's alleged ties to Russia "is now a kind of banana skin for Trump," Federov said. "That's why we should avoid any kind of step that could damage Trump. Trump cannot come to a meeting with Putin as a loser. He must sort out his domestic problems first."
Watch the NBC News report below.
-- Douglas Perry
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