US President Donald Trump was groomed 37 years ago as a potential Soviet asset, according to Alnur Mussayev, the former head of Kazakhstan’s security services, who had been a KGB officer in Moscow at the time.

In a Facebook post, Mussayev tried to shed light on Trump’s often baffling willingness to mollify Putin: “In 1987, I served in the 6th Directorate of the USSR KGB in Moscow,” Mussayev wrote on Feb. 20, explaining how “the most important direction of the work of the 6th Administration was the recruitment of businessmen from capitalist countries.”

 

Alnur Mussayev

He added: “It was that year that our administration recruited a 40-year-old businessman from the United States, Donald Trump under the pseudonym ‘Krasnov.’”

Since his first term as president, Trump has been suspected of being, if not a Russian asset outright, then at least inordinately sympathetic to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

In 2017, just as Trump was taking office after defeating Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, a report put together by former British intelligence operative Christopher Steele came to light. The document, initially commissioned by Trump’s Republican adversaries and subsequently taken over by the Democratic opposition, contained salacious accusations from purported Russian intelligence operatives claiming that Moscow had kompromat (compromising material) on Trump dating back to his various visits to Russia – including the infamous and never-corroborated “golden shower” videotape with Trump and a prostitute in a Moscow hotel.

Although the credibility of the “Steele dossier” has been vehemently contested by Trump supporters, especially for its use of anonymous sources, Mussayev confirms the existence of kompromat on Trump. In a Facebook post from Feb. 18, 2018, the former Kazakh spy chief who now resides in Vienna, Austria, wrote:

Already seven years ago, Mussayev said that the ruling elite in the US understood well that their president was deeply dependent on the Kremlin, but wouldn’t openly admit it, so as to not jeopardize the US’s status as sole superpower. He predicted the various attempts to remove Trump from power.

“Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset… and proved so willing to parrot anti-Western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow.” – Yuri Shvets

Well-worn accusations

Mussayev’s claims are by no means the only ones from former KGB officers.

In “American Kompromat,” a 2021 book by Craig Unger, former KGB officer Yuri Shvets claims that Trump had been recruited by Moscow in the 1980s.

Unger, however, has been quick to point out that the Trump recruitment process was almost fortuitous. “He was an asset,” Shvets said of Trump. “It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we’re going to develop this guy and 40 years later he’ll be president. At the time it started… the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.

Shvets noted that Trump was the perfect target: “His vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election,” he said, referring to the 2016 election.

Unexpected observer at Riyadh peace talks

Images from the Feb. 18  Riyadh meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his American counterparts showed Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev as a member of the Kremlin delegation and present at the talks, watching away from the main table. Rybolovlev is the Russian oligarch responsible for helping Trump out of a debt crunch by purchasing a Trump Palm Beach property valued at $40 million for $95 million in 2008.

 

NYT:  A columnist for the “New York Times” speculated after the scene whether Trump might be a Russian agent. He couldn't believe it himself, but at least Trump looked like one, wrote Thomas L. Friedman.

 

 

The Atlantic:

Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.

 

 Michael Bociurkiw:

I’ve a growing feeling that what we saw was almost pre-meditated. A deliberate sabotage by the Trump team of a draft resource deal that became so diluted that they no longer felt inclined to sign. But more so - long-simmering lava building up within Donald Trump against Zelensky and Ukraine that reached boiling point. . 

 

SPD foreign affairs expert Roth reacted with horror. “They are lashing out at Selensky without any respect or expertise. They are not only taking away his dignity, but also that of his people,” he told the ‘Tagesspiegel’ newspaper. This was “politically devastating and deeply indecent in human terms”. Putin and all authoritarian rulers should rejoice. With regard to the role of the USA, Roth added: “The USA no longer plays on the ‘liberal democracy’ team.”

“Anyone who relies on Trump's America will be abandoned"

 

 

There is a thing in Washington that many people understand but that few will say: that the Trump administration was looking for a pretext to ruin its relationship with Ukraine, and that the canned messaging that followed the Oval Office feels oddly coordinated and premeditated.

“That was a train wreck by design,” said Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London. “The quiet conversation since Munich has been about setting Ukraine up for a fall."

By Friday afternoon, the Trump administration was briefing reporters that it was so offended by Zelenskyy’s conduct that it would consider cutting all military aid to Ukraine, including ammunition, vehicles and missiles awaiting shipment. The official told the Washington Post that the conflict with Zelenskyy had not been premeditated.