[Asset] Krasnov
Sunday 6 April 2025
The Kremlin wasn’t looking for an agent but an asset when it sought out Donald Trump at a luncheon in New York City in 1986. The odds of anything happening were remote, but it was the job of Russian Ambassador Yuri Dubinin and his daughter Natalia to give it their best. Natalia had done her homework and made the first move, buttering up Trump by praising Trump Tower. It worked—as stated in The Art of the Deal, Natalia “had read about Trump Tower and knew all about it,” Trump wrote.
Donald Trump had passed the KGB’s initial behavioral vulnerability test. Privately, the Russians laugh at the boastfulness of Americans, but when it comes to finding agents and assets they seek out this characteristic. To Russian intelligence services, big talkers are insecure people and ripe for exploitation – whether in or outside Russia.
By every conceivable metric, including common sense, something is seriously wrong with the Trump presidency. In just over two months, the U.S. has alienated its closest allies and sent its economy into retreat. While pushing for a return of manufacturing to America, the Trump administration has cracked down on many of the people needed to fill manufacturing jobs. Not illegals, but trustworthy immigrants frightened by what they see. And while all this is happening, Donald Trump publicly degrades a man who is democracy’s greatest modern hero, treating Ukraine’s President Zelensky as though he were the enemy.
What could possibly make a U.S. president act like this?
Applying the logic of Occam’s Razor—where the simpler explanation is usually the correct one—we might ask:
A. Did President Trump—despite his history of business failures and bankruptcies—figure out a grand scheme for the complex task of returning efficiency to government while eliminating the national debt?
Or
B. Did President Trump fall prey to Russia and become a Russian asset?
Donald Trump fit the bill in 1986 and has likely been a Russian asset ever since. While he may not have been aware that Russian intelligence was tracking him, this changed in the early 1990s when Trump turned to Russia for help. He couldn’t find lenders in the U.S., so he went abroad. Russia liked him, and he liked Russia.
Russia’s spy agencies have been in the business of developing “assets” and “agents” since the early days of the Soviet Union, well over a hundred years ago, and even before then under the Czar. Agents are essentially employees of Russian spy agencies. Assets, however, are individuals who can lead Russian spies to intelligence. A Russian asset may not even know that he or she is an asset or be aware they’re being groomed as one. This, however, becomes clear in times of desperation when, like the mafia, the Kremlin offers a deal you can’t refuse. When this moment came for Donald Trump, the Kremlin sprang into action.
After helping Trump to address his immediate financial needs, Russian intelligence began to leak information to him, collected over his many visits to Russia. This information showed that Trump’s debt to Russia wasn’t just financial but entangled in mountains of incriminating pictures and videos. Like the bonefish, Trump had not just taken the bait but swallowed it along with the hook. Russia would reel him in when needed.
Why would anyone who wants to make America rich again turn away from the $20 trillion GDP of the European Union – and a $1.6 trillion trading partner – in favor of Russia? As of 2021, before the Ukraine war started, Russia’s GDP was one-tenth the size of the EU’s and its trade 1/80th ($20 billion) of the U.S.’s trade with the EU. What does America gain from Russia versus Europe? To most, the survival of Europe is central to the U.S. economy and Western civilization, but this doesn’t seem to register with Donald Trump, despite his German heritage.
Trump not only sways to Putin’s waltz but sings along too. Like Putin and Hungary’s authoritarian ruler Orbán, Trump is well-versed in victimhood. He doesn’t see our trading partners as critical to America’s security and success but as adversaries – doing harm to the fabric of America. What may be a justified argument about trade imbalances is suddenly turned into childish outbursts about being “cheated” and “ripped off.” In Trump’s world, somebody is always a victim. If not himself—which is usually the case—the victim is one of his constituencies. Of course, nobody likes being cheated, but to say this is the case with our trading partners is to tell only half the story.
We never hear Trump mention the advantage given to the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Nor does he acknowledge the 1,145 NATO soldiers—from Canada, Australia, and 14 European countries—who fought and died alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. These facts undermine victimhood and are not just ignored but forgotten.
It’s difficult to understand U.S. President Donald Trump, but Donald Trump as a Russian asset squares with his behavior – particularly given his history with Russia and the billions in dark money that are the lifeblood of Putin’s criminal empire. Trump, forever the victim, is okay with dark money, even if it flows through the same channels that supply foreign enemies, terrorists, and cartels. He sees it as fair compensation for the abuse he has had to endure in the courts and public media.
Trump’s call with the Russian leader in February was just another step in his embrace of Putin. The war that he said he would end on day one following his inauguration continues. Feigning that he really wants to end the war, Trump is giving Putin the time needed to rebuild his forces and continue his assault on Ukraine.
That’s a friendship that only money can buy.
