Donald Trump is not, and never will be, the Moscow correspondent for The Nation magazine, and he shouldn't sound like it.
The left-wing publication is prone to extend sympathetic understanding to adversaries of the United States and find some reason, any reason, to blame ourselves for their external aggression and internal suppression. Especially to the regime of Vladimir Putin, which is supposedly forced into its brute-force cynicism by its "encirclement" by the West.
This is an old trope going back to the Cold War, used as an excuse every time Moscow tramples a neighbor and lies about it.