Anna Arutunyan

Special for USA TODAY

MOSCOW — Russian politicians enamored with President Trump's talk of improved relations with Moscow last fall are already disillusioned that he's reversed course because of investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said he was surprised Trump started “receding” from his earlier pro-Russian rhetoric about closer cooperation. “Even in the way he talks you can now hear notes of Obama,” he said. “And you can hear in his address (to Congress Tuesday): the military budget will be increased by over $50 billion.”

“We have to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” Sergei Mironov, head of the Just Russia party told a parliamentary round table on foreign policy this week. “The sooner Trump understands that world history is governed by laws and not business schemes, that there are values that are not measured in dollars, the better for Russian-American relations.”

Their disappointment follows a tougher line on Russia from Trump’s White House. Last month, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump expected Russia to return Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014. That is at odds with comments Trump made during the campaign, when he suggested Russia should keep Crimea and that U.S. sanctions imposed after its seizure be lifted.

The Kremlin rejected any intention of returning Crimea. Shortly after, state-run media suddenly stopped its pro-Trump coverage.

In the United States, anti-Russian sentiment has been growing in Congress over intelligence allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered cyberattacks aimed at helping elect Trump, charges both the Kremlin and Trump deny.

Still, the FBI is investigating contacts between Russians and Trump officials before and after the election, and the scandal already has forced Trump to fire his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, over contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

The allegations prompted Trump to acknowledge at a news conference last month that he probably can't do business with Russia now because of the political climate.

Some Russians are skeptical of a Kremlin plot to elect Trump. "Whatever silly thing the president does raises the possibility of a Russia connection," said Alina Lobzina, a freelance news producer, who urged Americans to stop blaming Russia. "Seriously, from across the ocean it looks like a House of Cards episode, and not the best one."

Breaking with his earlier praise of Russia and Putin, Trump did not mention either in Tuesday night's speech to Congress.

“There was an atmosphere of positive expectations” in the Kremlin, said Konstantin von Eggert, a political commentator with Russia’s independent Dozhd TV station. Now the relationship between the two countries is "toxic," he said.

"The Kremlin is realizing that maybe the best outcome would be to maintain the current level of tensions between Russia and America rather than having something worse,” he said.

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The latest sign of U.S. tensions about Russia came Thursday, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the election-meddling probe because he had met with the Russian ambassador twice last year, when he was a senator and Trump campaign adviser, but failed to disclose at his confirmation hearing when asked about contacts with Russians. Sessions said the meetings were innocuous and the election never came up.

Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday that he agreed with Trump that the examination of innocent contacts with Russia amounted to a “witch hunt.”

Peskov said on Wednesday that he saw nothing wrong with Trump’s failure to mention Russia in his hour-long address to Congress. “We have patience. We will wait until Trump’s statements are backed up by some action that will allow us to understand what we can expect in terms of bilateral Russian-American relations,” he said.

Alexei Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies, said Russian officials' expectations about Trump are becoming more realistic.

“There was a sense in the beginning that Trump is our kind of guy, that he will come in and solve everything," he said. "But these sentiments did not take into account the nature of the American political system and the character of the new president, who really does not intend to be Russia’s ally."

"Everything will depend on whether they are able to reach an agreement on specific issues, like Ukraine or Syria."