Vladimir Putin and President Trump are both right: US-Russian relations have “been degraded,” as Putin put it Wednesday. Indeed, Trump said they may be “at an all-time low.” But most interesting is the reason for the freeze.

Years of Russia and its allies, Iran and Syria, operating with virtual impunity have come to a crashing halt — because the Trump administration refuses to sit meekly by.

First came last week’s US strike in response to Bashar al-Assad’s deadly sarin-gas attack on innocent civilians.

Team Trump has followed with a series of public slaps in the face to Putin.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson led the charge, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Each made it clear in no uncertain terms: Washington will no longer turn a blind eye to Syrian atrocities — or Moscow’s continuing cover-up of those crimes.

As Russia did Wednesday, by vetoing a proposed UN Security Council investigation into the sarin attack — which Putin pretends was the victims’ fault.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov even calls the US response “unlawful” — when the war crime of intentionally bombing hospitals has been one of Russia’s signature tactics in Syria.

As a candidate and even in his first weeks in the White House, Trump expressed hope for better relations with Russia. But he’s learned more quickly than the last two presidents — especially Barack Obama — that Mitt Romney got it exactly right in 2012: Russia is America’s major geopolitical foe.

But where Obama laughed off that description and tried desperately to “reset” relations, Team Trump is having none of it.

“It is clear to all of us that the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end,” Tillerson declared Wednesday, openly challenging Moscow to abandon its Syrian ally. Trump himself accused Putin of backing “an animal” and “a butcher,” someone who is “truly an evil person.”

And the president delivered a ringing reaffirmation of the NATO alliance, which he had once declared “obsolete.”

Tillerson is right that “the world’s two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship.” But he and the president have made it clear that the ball to improve it is squarely in Putin’s court.