One of the most gut-wrenching things you can experience as a journalist is an unsettled hunch.
It is the nagging feeling that comes with knowing that a story has the ring of truth to it without having a clear path towards verifying it beyond any reasonable doubt.
I came across the stunning claim that US president Donald Trump is a Russian asset codenamed ‘Krasnov’ on social media. Given that Facebook isn’t exactly an agora of truthful ideas, I was about as skeptical as one could be.
But can anyone in my position ignore the fact that multiple former Russian secret service commanders have now made this claim publicly?
Judging from the dearth of major investigations from mainstream media in the US, it clearly seems like I sure could. Dismiss the claim as nonsense and move on.
At least two outlets did just that, even though their interpretation of events leaves a lot to be desired and was largely reliant on a pro-Moscow narrative. In comparison to the news giants who have the resources to pull this off, I certainly can do very little.
But, a good story that tracks and is the singular best explanation for Trump’s deep-throated capitulation in front of Vladimir Putin? I don’t care what you think – I’m writing whatever it is I can write, within the bounds of what can be reasonably fact-checked from a distance.
Full disclosure: there is often very little one can do to fact-check anything in the shadowy world of covert espionage. If there’s one profession where secrets are generally taken all the way to the grave, it’s most certainly this one.
Having said that, the claims at hand are too compelling to ignore.
First, there was former KGB spy Yuri Shvets and the claims made in Craig Unger’s book, ‘American Kompromat.’ More recently, we heard from the former commander of the KGB’s outpost in Kazakhstan, Alnur Mussayev.
All this within the context of amply documented Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign that eventually led to Trump’s first presidential term, along with the gratuitous pro-Russian narrative that Trump echoes at every chance he gets during his ongoing second term.
A screenshot of Alnur Mussayev’s first post about Trump’s codename, ‘Krasnov’, and his links with the KGB.
Both Shvets and Mussayev virtually said the same exact thing about the man who now occupies the White House: that for the past 40 years, Russian security services and their satellites have been grooming Donald Trump as “the perfect target” for Russian influence operations.
It started with a raft of business deals and money pouring into Trump-owned real estate. The former spies claim that the idea was to wine-and-dine Trump, court his rabid political ambitions, and eventually command power over him if and when he ever did claim power. The most explosive unproven allegation to date is that Putin holds compromising material about Trump and is using it as leverage.
Side bar for the uninitiated – if the three-letter acronym ‘KGB’ means nothing to you, consider yourself fortunate. During Soviet Russia’s heyday, those three letters could strike terror in the heart of anyone who is not a fan of defenestration.
The KGB, or ‘The Committee for State Security’, was Soviet Russia’s chief secret service agency. Its modern-day incarnation is the FSB, or the Federal Security Service.
While the agency’s true history remains largely under heavily classified control within the Russian government, people like Shvets and Mussayev practically serve as the only living repositories of information about its activities. Its reputation for brutality, relentlessness, and a penchant for blackmail precedes it.
If you need a clear example of what the KGB/FSB stands for, look no further than Vladimir Putin himself. That soulless, black-and-white grimace gracing this article’s featured photo dates from the time in which Putin cut his teeth as a KGB agent in the 1980s. His rise to power was built on top of the corpses of the agency’s enemies.
Which begs what I described as the trillion dollar question – everyone in the world knows who Vladimir Putin is, how he operates, and how he has risen to power. Everyone knows that the Russian government is as ruthless as the agency that shaped the dictator-in-chief.
So, in that respect, how is the president of the United States failing the equivalent of a historical open note test? How could Donald Trump ever possibly justify bending the US’ knee to Putin at every step of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine while alienating European allies whenever possible?
The only reasonable explanation is that Trump is so personally indebted to the Russian state that he has no option but to provide cover for Putin’s naked land grab.
Every other official explanation doesn’t cut it. The US was never interested in securing peace. It was always about thwarting Russian aggression and selling US made weapons. Trump’s interest in bringing the war to a halt is largely dependent on his desire to secure deals with the Russians and extract concessions from Ukraine.
This velvet glove approach to direct negotiations with Russia serves none of the Trump administration’s stated objectives. Putin’s slow-walking of peace negotiations is a clear indicator of how disingenuous the Kremlin’s ploy really is.
Trump is handing Russia concessions that Ukraine cannot afford to give, effectively damning Kyiv and the rest of Europe to a future in which the spectre of Moscow hangs above the entire Eastern border.
The US’ foreign policy is all over the place, lurching from hyper-aggressive remarks about taking over territory from its allies to tariff threats that go from zero to double digits faster than you can say ‘trade war.’
Everything Trump is doing in this second term reads like a script from Putin’s most unhinged bedside drawer fantasies.
The fact is that we are talking about two global superpowers being left entirely in the hands of two men whose worldview is largely the same – the belief that they and they alone can herald a new era of dominance in their countries.
The key difference between the two is that one of them is a serial fraudster who is largely known for his seemingly neverending ability to outlast scandal and the other is a trained killer who’s been in the game for so long he makes Mike Ehrmantraut look like a pathetic amateur.
Of course, it may well be the case that Shvets and Mussayev are just part of another Russian influence operation meant to further destabilise the US.
Perhaps Trump really is just an idiot who is infatuated with Putin, laying flowers at his doorstep like a desperate suitor because he wants the same kind of unchecked power that he does. Maybe, it really is just birds of a feather flocking together.
None of that explains why someone whose entire grift is built around ‘the art of the deal’ is now suddenly handing over concessions with the same generosity of a Christian missionary donating blankets full of smallpox.
Unless the remnants of the free press pool their resources together to investigate this earth-shattering claim, we will never know for sure.
What we do know is that wealth, privilege, and power are the only reasons why Donald Trump is sitting in the Oval Office and not a federal jail cell.
If American citizens do not wish to witness the death of their nation within this lifetime, I suspect their only option will have to be nothing short of a revolution.
Bravo!!!