Trump wins sympathy from Russian media ahead of summit with Putin

US President Donald Trump is no fan of American journalists, but he might love what the Russian media are saying about him ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin later today.

A political maverick who is being unfairly targeted by his own compatriots that's the common portrayal of Trump on Russia's largely Kremlin-friendly TV networks, websites and newspapers.

Newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda dismissed the US investigation into Trump's "mythical work for the Kremlin", and praised Trump for meeting Putin "despite opposition from his own elite and the hysterics of the media".

Panelists on popular Sunday night talk show "Vecher" or "Evening" said Putin goes into today's summit in Helsinki as the clearly stronger figure, notably coming off his hosting of the FIFA World Cup.

Universally sympathetic to Trump, they described him as hobbled by domestic political challenges a problem Putin doesn't face after 18 years of stifling political opposition and by special investigator Robert Mueller's probe of alleged Russian election interference.

Ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky was among those brushing off new indictments of Russians accused of hacking the 2016 US presidential campaign, calling it implausible that a dozen Russians could have damaged the American electoral system.

The arguments feed the Kremlin narrative that democracy is dangerous unless it is carefully "managed". Russian commentators and editorialists who consider the European Union hostile, troublesome or irrelevant welcomed Trump's criticism of longtime European allies as "foes" to the US.

Russia's state-run Channel One said Trump's meetings in Britain and contentious appearance at the NATO summit last week were secondary to today's summit, saying: "After all, he was just passing through Brussels and London on the way to Helsinki."
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the upper house of parliament's foreign affairs committee, wrote in Izvestia newspaper that today's talks come at a time when "so-called 'peace-loving' Europe is afraid of peace talks between US and Russia."