I suspect it dates to approximately when the Russians, the Putin regime specifically became their ally. The well documented work of the Putin security services to boost GOP and GOP-related causes online (known to the rest of the world as abhorrent racist homophobic disinformation) being the most blatant example of thia
More generally Putin has always been hero worshiped by the GOP for his Christian Nationalist views. His message that his regime is the only bulwark of weak decadent “woke” liberal west with its sexual depravity and atheism, against the rise of extremist Islam and the brown skinned masses that are poised to overwhelm Europe, is basically the GOP platform
We are seeing some positively stalinist erasure of history with the GOP forgetting all those years they spent stan’ing the Russian military and how, with its adherence to traditional Christian masculine values, it’s overtaken the effete western military with all it’s wokeness. Remember if war was ever to break out between Russia and the western powers their manly unwoke army would wipe the floor with their girly western opponents!