Trump Shows His True Colors as Another ex-KGB Officer Nails Him as a Russian Asset

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

As he rapidly imposes autocracy on America, Donald Trump appears to be losing his inhibitions in admitting he works for Moscow. His blaming Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, his personal attacks on President Zelensky and his brazen mafia-like strong-arming Ukraine to forfeit half of its critical minerals to the United States all but announce to the world that he and Vladimir Putin are partners in crime.

I’ve been making the argument that Donald Trump is a Russian intelligence asset since 2016: “Is Donald Trump the Siberian Candidate?” “Tinker. Tailor. Mogul. Spy?” “The Case for Treason” “Trump is a Russian Asset and Here’s Why” “Will Trump Take His Treason to His Grave?” “Is Trump Passing Official Secrets to the Kremlin?”

Plenty of other journalists and book authors have been making the same case, e.g., Craig Unger’s American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery. No lesser light than former acting CIA Director Mike Morell said, “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

Former KGB major Yuri Shvets, who gained asylum in the U.S. in 1993, asserts that Trump has been cultivated as an “asset” by Russian intelligence since 1977: “Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target. We’re talking about Trump being a self-interested businessman who’s happy to do a favor if it works to his own best interests.” In an interview with the Guardian in 2021, Shvets said, “Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset… and proved so willing to parrot anti-Western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow.” He told Craig Unger, “The guy is not a complicated cookie, his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This combination makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter.”

Now another ex-KGB officer has come out with his own allegations against Trump. Alnur Mussayev was the former head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB). In 2007, Mussayev fled Kazakhstan to Austria after accusing the government of widespread corruption involving oil companies. He served in the Soviet KGB from 1979 until the breakup of the USSR in 1991. He was awarded two medals and the Order of the Red Star for his service. Mussayev last week posted on Facebook that Donald Trump had been recruited by the KGB in 1987 and given the codename “Krasnov.”

Here’s a translation of his charges (boldface type is mine to accentuate key points):

In 1987, I served in the 6th Directorate of the USSR KGB in Moscow. The most important task of the 6th Directorate was the recruitment of businessmen from capitalist countries. It was that year that our administration recruited a 40-year-old businessman from the United States, Donald Trump under the pseudonym “Krasnov.”

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin:

To my regret, Kazakhstan does not sufficiently monitor and evaluate Donald Trump’s actions in the international arena and in the domestic politics of the United States. This is important for our country due to the fact that due to Trump’s turbulent policies, the world and universal human values ​​are changing globally. The entire world order is changing radically, to which our country must adapt and find its rightful place.

Donald Trump is on the FSB’s [Russia’s domestic intelligence service] hook and swallowing the bait deeper and deeper. This is evidenced by numerous indirect facts published in the media. There is the concept of the recruitability of a target. Based on my experience in operations at the KGB-KNB, I can say for certain that Trump falls into the category of the ideal recruit. I have no doubt that Russia has kompromat on the president of the United States and that for many years the Kremlin promoted Trump to the position of president of the world’s leading power.

The ruling elite of the USA understands perfectly well that their president is deeply dependent on the Kremlin, but the status of a global power does not allow them to openly admit it. Of course, they conduct investigations and trials of members of the White House team, and publish critical materials. Persons in authority and members of Congress call Trump a traitor. All this is done in the hope that Trump will step down or will bring about a soft impeachment without acknowledging that Trump is Moscow’s agent.. I doubt that they will succeed. Donald Trump, as an autocrat, as a true dictator, has grabbed onto the White House Oval Office with tooth and nail.

Putin is simply mocking the world public when, with a wry smile and playing by his own rules, denies Trump’s dependence on the Kremlin. Trump actively and overtly plays into this by denying his secret cooperation in order to retain his position as president. All this is being done skirting the law and is typical of autocrats, adventurers and thugs.

In this situation, Trump went for broke, put his carefully crafted image of a tough Yankee on the altar of the struggle for power, bowing before Russian President Vladimir Putin. With his actions and statements, he seems to be telling everyone: “Yes, I am such a scoundrel, I am breaking democracy, declaring my allies enemies, humiliating their leaders, supporting dictators Duterte and Nazarbayev, legitimizing Kim Jong-un, and obeying Putin.” At the same time, he hopes that the U.S. establishment will never formally identify him as Moscow’s agent of influence. And if he and Putin manage to win this struggle, then in his next presidential term, by appointing and placing people dependent on him in all branches of government and the security agencies, he will ensure a secure term for himself in the White House.

Will America’s centuries-old democracy endure him? Trump’s chances against the ruling elite, who embody American democracy, are, in my opinion, 50/50 today.

And so a new world order has been defined. Globalization, democracy and international cooperation in all spheres of life have finally been replaced by far-right conservatism, or to put it bluntly, Nazism and fascism. This is not news. Almost everyone predicted such a return to the world order of the first half of the 20th century.

The leading geopolitical players of the new world order have already been determined.

On the one hand, these are the dictatorships of the Russian Federation and the USA and on the other — infantile, amorphous Europe and a strong Ukraine.

China is still holding back; it is not known whom it will join. Most likely, it will remain on its own.

Wanting to preserve Trumpism and Putinism over the next 20-30 years, the United States and Russia hope to enslave Ukraine and finally dismantle Europe, dividing it up between themselves according to spheres of influence. All of this has been declared publicly by Putin and Trump. But will it really work? I highly doubt it.

First, everything will hang on the amazing resilience of Ukraine and the ineffective, though large army of occupiers. Second, Europe has already increased spending on weapons and military equipment. And it is not going anywhere. It will have to deploy aircraft and long-range missiles in an armed conflict.

In the coming decades, Americans will have the opportunity to fully experience far-right conservatism and populism along with escalating social inequality, Nazism and racism. The key factor is that this American virus does not spread to Europe. Everyone has seen how Vice President, racist Vance at the Munich Conference called on Europeans to open up to the far-right AfD and the like.

What to make of all this? One expects Trump to finally announce, “I regret that I have but two terms to betray my country.” While Putin, through his proxies, from Trump on down the GOP chain of cowards, destroys the United States from within, Americans appear helpless to do anything about it other than launch scattered protests and complain to their congresspeople.

British historian Arnold Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rise by successfully meeting daunting challenges under the stewardship of dynamic, creative leaders, e.g., George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, etc. And they fall under the misrule of self-serving tyrants and mediocrities, e.g., Donald Trump and Elon Musk. “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” Toynbee concluded.

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UPDATE: Michael Sellers, a former CIA case officer who served in Russia, concludes: 1) “Alnur Mussayev is a credible individual”; 2) “Mussayev’s claims are compelling, consistent with other collateral reporting, and fit within a broader pattern of known Soviet intelligence activities. However, they are not conclusive”; and 3) “Whether or not Trump was recruited in 1987 may ultimately be less important than the fact that today, he is aligned with Putin’s interests. Whatever the origins of that alignment, its current reality is undeniable.”

My take: Whether a Russian asset, a useful idiot, or mere sympathizer, the end outcome is the same.

The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.