All this Trump/Putin mischief in the globe can be tracked back to the Crimea.
In many ways, Crimea is comparable to the Rhineland’s importance in pre-WW2 politics. The Rhineland was taken from Germany punitively in the Treaty of Versailles. The post WW1 resentment over losing the Rhineland was massive and complicated. Hitler stoked the cultural resentments of his nation and by taking back the Rhineland, made him incredibly popular within Germany. Much of what Hitler did was ignored by his people because they loved him enough to suspend belief.
The need to have that cultural hero superseded the facts being presented to the German people. Propaganda does not trick people into believing what they don’t believe. It tricks them into believing what they WANT to believe, and what they refuse to let go of because it became so central to national identity.
Similarly, It was a cultural belief that the Crimea is Russian. One of Catherine the Greats lasting victories is attaining the Crimea. Catherine’s defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1783 and attaining the Crimea as part of the Treaty provision ending the two-century-long conflict.
When the USSR dissolved, Ukraine became independent and took the Crimea and most of the USSR naval fleet control.
That was just unacceptable to Putin and his oligarchical brotherhood’s needs to not have the port access for black market sales.
Holding the Crimea allows Russia huge seaport access to the Atlantic side of the Russian Federation.
Russia’s landlocked history pre 1890’s, created geopolitical hurdles that made competing with British and American Naval dominance difficult, and the Crimea is central to its modern competitive empire.
When Putin invaded the Crimea his popularity soared yet he failed to attain the financial payoff for such huge political capital spent. due to Clinton’s instrumental support in the Magnitsky act. She made it financially punitive to invade other nations, and Putin couldn’t pay the Oligarchs who allowed him to invade in the first place.
Putin’s obsession with getting the Magnitsky act removed was his clear reasoning for Trump’s kompromat. After that, we see his huge global insurgency now in the virtual world of the internet to attain that end.
Trump is Putin's payback on the USA and Clinton for harming the Russian Oligarchy and is need to pay them back a financial and political debt.
Directly... Trump is a tool of Putin’s political vandalism based on spite for the Candidate Hillary Clinton, and his need to pay his oligarchs money.