Given that Putin has been in office for a long time given the nature of his dictatorship, whereas we change leaders frequently enough the real experience is only achieved later in the second term, he will always hold an innate advantage ovr any US president. But, I am not sure why you think Putin has "played" Trump when nothing significant has yet happened other than the US has been crackng down on them. Trump just pressed EU head Juncker to change over to US produced LNG in place of Russian LNG in order to head of a trade war. Trump is upgrading our military and updating our badly neglected nuclear arsenal as well. Trump also slapped down Syria (and thus Russia) very quickly as well.
This is all a perception of the liberal left. I do agree that since much of Europe is liberal and socialist, they probably see it the same way as you do, but that is only because they will see anything from a conservative US leader in this light.
I'm sorry if this hurts George Clooney's dinner conversations when he visits Monaco, but I don't really care.
I do agree that trump should have taken the high road. But then again, Trump never would have won election, nor survived the withering MSM attack, nor weathered the machinations of the Deep State IC trap that was set for him had he been the kind of guy that did that. Pig or not, he is the right guy for this task.