MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews is being haunted by a March 2012 “Hardball” segment where he mocked Mitt Romney for saying Russia is “our No. 1 geopolitical foe.”

Matthews called the characterization“Romney’s latest misstep, his geopolitical faux pas.”

But Romney’s premonition is proving more prescient than ever.

The world is watching developments in Ukraine, where the government recently collapsed while Russia moved troops into its Crimea region. The Russian Parliament voted to approve use of military force in the area Saturday, according to ABC News.

Now, social media outlets are having fun with replays of President Obama’s response to Romney’s warnings about Russia during the 2012 presidential debate, when he said, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the cold war has been over for 20 years.”

Obama got a huge assist at the time from Matthews, who openly ridiculed Romney for predicting Russia’s future as an American “foe.”

“I don’t know what decade this guy is living,” Matthews said at the time. “It sounds like ’72, ’52 even. It’s not Stalin over there. It’s not Khrushchev. It’s not Brezhnev. It’s [Dmitry] Medvedev. …I don’t know Medvedev. We’ve got mixed views to these guys. But he seems so sophisticated and witty about his response.”

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post jumped in to agree, saying Romney’s comments offered a glimpse into his view of geopolitical problems the United States has faced.

“He`s always opted for more hawkish, militant stance, whether it`s beefing up our presence in the Mediterranean, whether it`s beefing up our defense budget, armament,” Stein said. “The fact that he declared Russia the preeminent geopolitical problem that the United States faced in the world is an antiquated world view, but it’s not something that`s being hidden from Romney`s policy platform. He`s articulated stuff like this in the past.”

Russia is a much different country than it`s been in many decades, Stein said.

But then again, maybe it isn’t.

Watch Matthews’ 2012 segment here via NewsBusters:

Big time backfire when former team Obama worker tries to make a fool out of Mitt Romney