"When you actually look at the substance of what this administration has done, not the rhetoric but the substance, this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era," said Daniel Vajdich, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Take military spending: Trump sought to add $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2018 to the European Deterrence Initiative — a military effort to deter Russian aggression that was initially known as the European Reassurance Initiative. That's a 41 percent increase from the last year of the Obama administration.
The president also agreed to send lethal weapons to Ukraine — a step that Obama resisted.
And Trump gave U.S. forces in Syria more leeway to engage with Russian troops... "Those loosened rules of engagement have resulted in direct military clashes with Russian militants and mercenaries on the ground, actually resulting in one incident in hundreds of casualties on the Russian side," Vajdich said.
The administration has also imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials... tough policies...have to be weighed against Trump's rhetoric, which is consistently friendly to Putin. ."There's a real disconnect between the president's words and the underlying policy," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security. - https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630659379/is-trump-the-toughest-ever-on-russia
And rather than being a pawn of Putin, from from 12/26/17 there is
Trump Sends Tank-Killing Missile To Fight Russia in Ukraine, But What Can It Do? By John Haltiwanger On 12/26/17 at 5:53 PM EST The decision to sell the Javelin missiles also comes not long after the Trump administration approved a limited weapons sale between American manufacturers and Ukraine of Model M107A1 sniper systems, ammunition and associated equipment...It's fired from the shoulder and tracks targets via infrared (heat signature). Instead of targeting the front or sides of tanks, which are thick with armor, the missile flies in an arc and hits the top of tank where the armor is weak..
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko defended the move in a Facebook post, thanking President Donald Trump for his support. Poroshenko further described the arms sale as "a transatlantic vaccination against the Russian virus of aggression." - https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tank-killing-missile-fight-russia-ukraine-759745
And as reported by abcnews.go.com om Dec. 23, 2020,
"Previously, as reported by ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News, Headlines & Videos om Dec. 23, 2020, "Trump admin approves new sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.." The new package included Javelin anti-tank weapons, 150 missiles and two launchers, which came after a first sale, completed in March 2018, which included 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launch units.. "The Trump administration first approved the sale of Javelins to Ukraine in December 2017 -- a step that former President Barack Obama never took.... ..
Before that, "Russia's Putin praises Obama's missile defense decision" to "cancel a radar installation in the Czech Republic and ground-based interceptors planned for Poland," LA Times Sep 19, 2009
And those who protest NATO's overall spending of only about 3% of its GDP are opposing Trump. For contrary to being a Putin puppet as the Left prevaricates - and who were blaming him in Feb. 2020 for this invasion,
4/3/19
July 11, 2018 U.S. President Donald Trump told NATO leaders on Wednesday they should increase their defense spending to 4 percent of their country’s economic output, double the group’s current goal of two percent/
..nearly all 29 NATO members have increased their defense spending since Trump came to office, and at least 16 of the 29 are on track to meet their 2024 defense spending goals. Defense spending among 27 NATO allies has increased consistently between 2016 and 2018, with Hungary, Norway, Romania and Turkey making some of the biggest increases.
October 21, 2020 NATO spending has increased for the sixth consecutive year thanks to new contributions from allies, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in prepared remarks Wednesday...Canada and European countries' spending increased this year at a rate of 4.3 percent...Russia and China's aggressive behavior during Trump's term is one reason for the allies' increased spending.
Meanwhile, when procurement costs are taken into consideration (how much it cost for training and materials in respective countries relative to what they spend), then despite having far less to defend, the US military budget in 2019 was not larger than the next eleven countries. Rather it was smaller than the next three.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/11102021-debating-defense-budgets-why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters-analysis/