Why I think Trump loves the Russians

It's not just that they bought him, though they did.

It looks like for the last two decades at least, Trump has been a bagman laundering money for Russian mafia & oligarchs (& government, to the degree that this is a distinct category at all). This has enabled him to keep his empire afloat and play Mr. Rich Bigshot despite most of his endeavors being catastrophes.

To a pathological narcissist like Trump, this doesn't mean that they own him. This means that these Russians are really great guys who are smart enough to recognize how awesome he is and help him be awesome.

So he develops an affinity. Russians are great. They tell him Putin is great, so there it is. He learns to parrot all of their ideas, not because he's trying to impress them but because he's a pathological narcissist who doesn't have ideas, he just makes mouth noises which get people to praise him, and when he echoes them he gets his narcissistic supply.

And Putin is a Winner: everybody does what he tells them! That's how you know Winners are Winners. And he knows that Winners are all in the club of telling each other how awesome they are. That's what the Winners he hangs out with do, and so he returns the favor not out of obligation but because they tell him again that he is awesome when he does it.