That might sound like hyperbole, but in this case, there's actually some basis for the president's boast.
"When you actually look at the substance of what this administration has done, not the rhetoric but the substance, this administration has been much tougher on Russia than any in the post-Cold War era," said Daniel Vajdich, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Take military spending: Trump sought to add $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2018 to the European Deterrence Initiative — a military effort to deter Russian aggression that was initially known as the European Reassurance Initiative. That's a 41 percent increase from the last year of the Obama administration. The president also agreed to send lethal weapons to Ukraine — a step that Obama resisted. And Trump gave U.S. forces in Syria more leeway to engage with Russian troops.
"Those loosened rules of engagement have resulted in direct military clashes with Russian militants and mercenaries on the ground, actually resulting in one incident in hundreds of casualties on the Russian side," Vajdich said.