(MOSCOW) A review of the Russian press reveals a distinct focus on the geopolitical ramifications of the recent actions taken by Donald Trump regarding Iran, alongside a notable media blackout concerning the 2026 Academy Awards. It is highly unlikely that Donald Trump reads the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets over his morning coffee, but if he did, he would not appreciate their latest coverage.
The headline today declares that Iran has got Donald Trump securely by the throat. The publication asserts that the American leader has messed up and destroyed everything around him, noting that this situation is entirely about Donald Trump himself. The newspaper alleges that he now wants someone else to clear the rubble and create a new structure.
The report claims that the United States administration pinned Iran to the wall, practically forcing the nation to block the key global transport artery of the Strait of Hormuz merely for its own survival.
Moskovsky Komsomolets notes that having made this strange political flip flop, Donald Trump now demands that other countries, ranging from the United Kingdom and Germany to China, engage in resolving this problem in the form of an assault on Iran. The newspaper characterises such a formulation of the question as phenomenal cheek. However, the publication adds that phenomenal cheek is a permanent political characteristic of Donald Trump. It turned out that the American leader met his match in Iran. The article concludes that by wanting to strangle the authorities in Tehran, Donald Trump himself tightened the noose around his own neck and the necks of a significant number of countries that have nothing to do with the American attack on Iran.
Mind you, the Russian papers continue to see benefits for Moscow from what Donald Trump has done. The Kommersant newspaper published a headline claiming that Ukraine has lost the war in Iran. The publication argues that the conflict in the Middle East has weakened the positions of Kyiv and its allies.
According to Kommersant, the confrontation with Tehran has only strengthened the intention of Donald Trump to distance himself from Kyiv, since supporting Ukraine distracts the United States from its main battle. The newspaper asserts that if the war between the United States and Iran continues, it threatens to reduce American weapon supplies to Ukraine.
Furthermore, Komsomolskaya Pravda clearly relishes the thought that the NATO alliance may experience problems stemming from an angry United States president. The newspaper explicitly asks whether it is time for NATO to die. The publication highlights that NATO allies refused to help Donald Trump in the Strait of Hormuz. After hearing allies refusing his demand to send naval vessels to the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump declared that he thinks it will be very bad for the future of NATO.
The Russian government gazette, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, predicts likely extended consequences for NATO if the American patron of the alliance feels aggrieved by the current state of patronage. The gazette suggests that observers can also use the concept of protection from the criminal world to understand the dynamic, noting that such a system works only when the patron deriving the main benefit from the relationship takes on certain obligations. The publication argues that if everything comes down solely to the protector benefiting, the wards inevitably have a desire to find an alternative. However, the gazette acknowledges that in the current system, this is difficult to imagine because the allied nations cannot provide protection themselves, and there is no other protection in sight.
Shifting focus to the 2026 Academy Awards, there is plenty written about the Oscars in the Russian papers, but notably not much about the film Mr Nobody Against Putin, which won the award for best documentary. The documentary is a film about the indoctrination of Russian school children designed to get them to support the war initiated by the Russian dictator in Ukraine. The newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta has absolutely nothing about it, and the publications Izvestia, Pravda, and Moskovsky Komsomolets pass the victory by completely.
The publication Vedomosti does mention Mr Nobody Against Putin briefly. The newspaper notes that behind the dramatic title, which probably played a role in the triumphant path of the film to the Oscar, lies the non trivial story of Chelyabinsk teacher Pavel Talankin.
Following the events of February 2022, the teacher, together with American director David Borenstein, began to secretly record materials for a future film detailing how state propaganda is intensifying in one particular school. Finally, Kommersant wrote regarding the winners that the most political speech was made by David Borenstein, one of the directors of Mr Nobody Against Putin, and that the speech dealt exclusively with domestic issues. The newspaper noted that others, including his co author Pavel Talankin, talked mainly about abstract peace around the world or limited themselves to their professional sphere.
