There are an increasing number of articles about Donald Trump (KGB codename Krasnov) and his alleged involvement with the KGB from the 1970s. The articles referred to below include a sample of those that refer to Trump as a Russian/Soviet agent or asset and some even refer to him as Agent Krasnov. Verifying the truth of any of these articles is virtually impossible because even if Putin’s FSB (and/or Trump’s CIA) were to confirm Trump was/is a Russian/Soviet agent or asset many would quite justifiably question if they were telling the truth.
Nevertheless, the following KGB/FSB officers have disclosed (sometimes at great personal risk) that Donald Trump was a KGB/FSB agent or asset decades before he first became President of the USA: Yuri Shvets (KGB Major, defected to the USA); Oleg Kalugin (KGB General, headed KGB operations in and defected to the USA); Alexander Litvinenko (FSB Officer, later assassinated in the UK); Viktor Suvorov (GRU Officer, defected to the USA); Boris Karpichkov (KGB Major, defected to the UK); Sergei Tretyakov (SVR Officer, defected to the USA); and Alnur Mussayev (Kazakhstan's KNB (National Security Committee) Chief defected to Austria/Germany).
If you are a Trump disciple don’t just dismiss this article as promoting a slanderous conspiracy theory. Why? If you actually read this piece and some of the press articles et al referred to below you may find being given a codename by the KGB was a peculiar sort of compliment or honour. Many famous politicians and leading businessmen have been "honoured" by having codenames attributed to them and being listed as agents of influence or assets by the world’s leading intelligence agencies. Regarding Trump, some facts are undisputed by Trump supporters because they come from Trump himself either in his book The Art of the Deal or in regulatory disclosures or press statements etc made about his businesses and de facto signed off by him. The Trump family’s Russian interests and connections plus their visits to Russia and old Soviet bloc countries are too voluminous to mention in this piece but a not unreasonable summary thereof (with over 120 citations/references) can be found on Wikipedia entitled “Business projects of Donald Trump in Russia”.
In 2016 files declassified by the Czech Intelligence Service (the StB) showed inter alia that the Trumps had been under surveillance in Manhattan since 1977 when Donald Trump married Ivana Marie Zelnickova from Czechoslovakia in April that year. The StB agents who undertook the surveillance were code-named Al Jarza and Lubos and long before 2016 Trump had been classified as a “Confidential Contact” or "Trusted Connection" (“Doveritelnaya Svyaz”) by the StB/KGB/FSB.
In The Art of the Deal, Trump recalls that the idea for his first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin in the autumn of 1986 at a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the businessman son of Estée Lauder.
Trump wrote in his book that Yuri's daughter Natalia “had read about Trump Tower and knew all about it ... One thing led to another, and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government ... In January 1987, I got a letter from Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, which began: ‘It is a pleasure for me to relay some good news from Moscow.’ It went on to say that the leading Soviet state agency for international tourism, Goscomintourist, had expressed interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow.”
Pursuant to the Soviet invitation to visit Moscow which was arranged by Vitaly Churkin (the future Russian United Nations ambassador), Trump arrived there on 4 July 1987 (coincidentally American Independence Day) to explore potential real estate developments. Paradoxically, the capitalist Trumps stayed in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel at the bottom of Tverskaya Street, near Red Square. All their expenses were paid for by the KGB. Do note that you don’t stay in Lenin’s suite at the expense of the Russian State if you are a “secret” agent; however, you could be an agent hiding in plain sight.
Within a couple of months after Trump’s visit to Moscow he paid circa $95,000 for full-page advertisements in various US newspapers including the Washington Post and New York Times advocating that the USA should ditch its allies in NATO and let them fend for themselves. That all sounds a tad déjà vu! The Trumps later met Gorbachev on 9 December 1987 at the State Department in Washington DC during a luncheon held in Gorbachev's honour.
All that tells us one thing for sure. Before 1988 at the latest, the KGB would have had their own voluminous file on Trump. Needless to say they would have had access to the StB's files. No doubt the FBI, the CIA, MI6 et al all had bulky files on Trump by then too. According to Craig Unger (author) and Bill Fairclough (ex-British Intelligence agent), based solely on the contents of the declassified Czech intelligence files, there is no doubt whatsoever that Trump's dossier was started by the StB (and therefore became available to the KGB) in the 1970s.
Listed below are several articles most of which support the suggestion that Trump was a KGB agent or asset of some sort or another and beg the question as to what kompromat the FSB/KGB hold/held over him. Regarding kompromat, it is of note that Trump admits to having been a friend of Jeffrey Edward Epstein from 1987. Trump even described Epstein as a "Terrific Guy".
Of course, in terms of potential kompromat Epstein is not Trump’s sole Achilles Heel. Since the 1970s, at least 25 women have accused Donald Trump of various forms of assault, sexual misconduct, including rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Notable instances included accusations by many former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA contestants, Jessica Leeds (1980s), Stacey Williams (1993), E. Jean Carroll (1995/1996), Jill Harth (1997), Summer Zervos (2007) and even his own wife Ivana Trump (1989) when during their divorce proceedings she accused him of rape but later recanted the claim. Much of this and more besides may have once been kompromat in the eyes of the KGB/FSB … until released in the public domain.
Interestingly, Stacey Williams claimed Trump groped her after being introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein. She described the incident as part of a "twisted game" between Trump and Epstein. In addition, Anna Malova (Miss Russia 1998) was a close friend of both Epstein and Trump, a visitor to Epstein’s private island Little St. James (aka Pedophile Island), lived in an apartment in Trump Tower and was imprisoned in 2010 for drug related offences. It goes without saying that most of these publicised and other unknown instances (if any) of Trump’s sexual misconduct would probably have been well documented and almost certainly recorded one way or another by some of the world’s leading intelligence agencies.
In November 2013 Trump travelled to Moscow to host the Miss Universe pageant. The event was sponsored by the Azerbaijani/Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov, who often acted as a go-between twixt Putin and Trump and whose family had many business dealings with the Trump family. Aras Agalarov features in the Mueller Report as a liaison between Trump and Putin in the 2016 US presidential election.
Less than a year later in July 2014, Epstein applied for a Russian visa, with assistance from Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development. Belyakov also arranged for Epstein to meet with Russian officials, including Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak and Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Simanovsky. Apparently none of these influential Russians has ever met Trump and none featured in the Mueller Report. However, Belyakov who headed up the St. Petersburg Economic Forum Foundation (SPIEF, a magnet for Russian up market escorts and hookers) helped Epstein sort out Guzel Ganieva who was allegedly blackmailing his friend Leon Black. In return, Epstein advised Belyakov on how to circumvent sanctions and introduced him to high net worth and influential US businessmen.
In addition to Trump’s sexual misconduct and crimes, kompromat held by the Russians would have extended to his financial transgressions including bankruptcies, allegations of fraud and other irregularities until they became public knowledge. These misdemeanours included allegations of tax evasion over many years, the Trump Taj Mahal $3.0 billion casino bankruptcy (1991), the Trump Plaza and Trump Castle $0.9 billion bankruptcies (1992), the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts $1.8 billion restructuring to pre-empt bankruptcy (2004), the Trump Entertainment Resorts (casinos) $1.2 billion bankruptcy (2009), the Trump University fraud allegations (2013/2016), the Trump Foundation frauds/mismanagement allegations (2018) and more recent ongoing investigations into alleged financial irregularities by New York State authorities and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Trump’s alleged financial transgressions also include accusations of money laundering for the Russian Mafia. Exactly how many Russian mobsters and their mistresses own suites in Trump Tower and other properties owned or controlled by Trump is anybody’s guess but in 1984, Russian mobster David Bogatin bought five condos in Trump Tower soon after it opened. In 1992, backed by claims of money laundering, the condos were appropriated by the US government. Bogatin was a close associate of Semion Mogilevich (the godfather of the Russian Mafia). Also in Trump Tower on the 24th floor was a convicted Russian mobster/fraudster (later an FBI informant) called Felix Sater. He ran Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate corporation.
Sater along with Tevfik Arif from Kazakhstan helped bail out Trump through Bayrock after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt in 2004. Sater was a life-long pal of Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer/fixer in chief who owned El Caribe, a favourite Brooklyn hidey-hole of the Russian Mafia. Bayrock, along with Tamir Sapir a Russian billionaire often referred to as America's "billionaire cabbie”, partnered Trump in the development of the Trump Soho Hotel which was used for money laundering purposes by Russian Mafia such as Viktor Vyacheslavovich Khrapunov from Kazakhstan. Sater, Khrapunov and the diamond magnate Lev Leviev (whom Mueller investigated courtesy of his links to Trump) all feature in an eye-opening Dutch investigative documentary series produced by Zembla called "The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump".
In 2008, Dmitry Rybolovlev (owner of Monaco football club) bought Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Maison de L'Amitié, for $95 million. Rumours at the time alleged that it was only really worth half that but then prices for plush Floridian real estate can fluctuate as much as US trade tariffs under a Trump presidency!
Bearing in mind Trump was under StB/KGB surveillance from 1977, most of Trump’s past sexual and financial “indiscretions” would have been catalogued as kompromat by the KGB/FSB before becoming public knowledge. What remains secret and/or unproven is what matters now although if Teflon Trump can dodge insurrection charges he is unlikely to be hung out to dry for money laundering for the Russian Mafia. Furthermore, given Putin has controlled the Russian Mafia and most Russian oligarchs for decades he is unlikely to shoot himself in the foot by snitching on Trump other than to save his own skin.
There can be little doubt now that Trump was a Russian agent but so what? Let’s not forget that there are many varieties of intelligence agents and assets so don’t just think James Bond! For example, he could have been an unwitting agent of the Russian State. He could have been listed as a mere contact or asset or as an agent of influence (with or without being given a code name) and he would be none the wiser unless it became public knowledge. There are probably millions of people documented in the files of the world’s largest intelligence agencies (including those of The Five Eyes) who have no idea they have been listed as assets, agents or persons of interest and/or been allocated codenames. Trump could easily be or have been one of those but there is one immense difference. Unlike Trump, the contacts of 99% plus of those listed would not have read like a Who’s Who of the Russian Mafia and the KGB/FSB.
Nevertheless, bearing in mind that several British Prime Ministers and US Presidents have discovered and acknowledged they were listed as agents of influence of enemy states and given codenames, the fact that Trump was classified similarly should come as no surprise. What may prove surprising though is the extent to which Trump has been controlled by Russia even whilst President of the United States of America. We may never know how much control was exerted over him by Putin or how it was effected. Nonetheless, Trump’s relationship with Putin appears most bizarre as evidenced inter alia by Trump’s handling of the Ukraine/Russia peace initiatives in 2025 and their previous contact over the years.
There can be little doubt that no matter what Trump’s relationship with the Kremlin is or was, given his chequered past the FSB must have been astounded and delighted when Trump was first elected as President and then again in 2024 while still facing charges of having led an insurrection on 6 January 2021. Despite Trump’s chequered past and being a convicted felon, he is still Commander in Chief of NATO and the USA’s armed forces notwithstanding that he is barred from normal military service (which is also the case because of his age) or even getting a job as a prison janitor in most states in the USA. Indeed, it is almost beyond belief that anyone with such a catalogue of alleged crimes and wrongdoing could become President of the USA, so how did he do it and why did tens of millions of American citizens back him?
The extent to which Trump is manipulated by Putin and co has been and will be influenced by not only the kompromat they hold against him but also by the degree to which Agent Krasnov has been indoctrinated by Russian intelligence over the decades. There can be little doubt that Trump has tried to feather his own nest by working with the Russian State. In that regard, best ask Robert Mueller how many other US politicians or leading US business people he knows of:
(1) who have had thousands of articles written about them stating unequivocally and/or alleging that they are involved in money laundering and related crimes involving the Russian State and Russian Mafia but have never been imprisoned; and
(2) whose immediate circle or close entourage has had or continues to have relationships with at least 272 Russian “friends” most of whom work or have worked in Russian intelligence and/or for the Russian Mafia or State.
Mueller did not address many of the issues raised in this article because they fell outside his mandate. However, the broader question remains: why did the FBI and CIA refrain from taking action to prevent Trump from twice ascending to the presidency? The answer is both complex and straightforward. Such intervention would have constituted a fundamental subversion of democracy. A parallel can be drawn with the UK and its marginal economically suicidal vote for Brexit. MI5 and MI6 were acutely aware of the extensive and intricate connections between Russian intelligence, Putin’s oligarchs and key governmental figures such as Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. Nonetheless, they chose not to interfere and subvert democracy despite the lies and deceit underpinning Boris Johnson’s Brexit campaign.
Democracy is its own worst enemy just as secrecy can be subverted to become the worst enemy of most intelligence agencies. By exploiting all that and utilizing Trump aka Agent Krasnov as a catalyst for disruption, Putin has inflicted immense and potentially irreparable damage upon his adversaries in the USA, NATO, the EU and the UK.
REFERENCES
1. Bill Fairclough https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2021.07.21.php on TheBurlingtonFiles website at https://theburlingtonfiles.org and https://www.linkedin.com/posts/billfairclough_britains-dismal-dossier-on-russian-political-activity-7299428550988685312-QLPt/?rcm=ACoAAAAm0vYBnRj1OgDU7dBk5yDBeOrTjbq9J5E 2021/2025
2. Craig Unger - American Kompromat - How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery - Penguin, 2021 - American Kompromat Review: Trump, Russia, Epstein - The Guardian - Charles Kaiser https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/07/american-kompromat-review-trump-russia-epstein-craig-unger 7 February 2021
3. Snopes https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/03/02/trump-kgb-operative-krasnov Undated
4. NewsNow https://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/?search=Krasnov&lang=en&searchheadlines=1 March 2025
5. Marshall Cohen - The Steele Dossier: A Reckoning - CNN - https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html 18 November 2021
6. Donald Trump's Russian Spy Connection - The Economic Times - The Times of India - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/donald-trumps-russian-spy-connection-social-media-explodes-with-evidence-about-krasnov-is-it-just-another-wild-conspiracy-theory/articleshow/118504492.cms?from=mdr 23 February 2025
7. Former Intelligence Officer Alnur Mussayev Claims KGB Recruited Donald Trump Under Codename Krasnov - https://web.archive.org/web/20250221153932/https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-intelligence-officer-alnur-mussayev-claims-kgb-recruited-donald-trump-under-codename-krasnov 21 February 2025
8. The Times Of Central Asia - https://timesca.com/kazakh-ex-security-chiefs-false-trump-kgb-recruitment-story-gains-media-traction 24 February 2025
9. Trump Recruited as Moscow Asset Says ex-KGB Spy Chief - Stash Luczkiw - Kyiv Post - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47630 22 February 2025
10. Robert Mueller, - Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election - U.S. Department of Justice - https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl?inline= March 2019
11. https://entities.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJvCWC3XXtyfvww8DjpQMP.html 24 February 2025
12. Katelyn Polantz - Steele Dossier - CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/09/politics/fbi-steele-dossier/index.html 9 December 2019
13. David Smith - The Perfect Target: Russia Cultivated Trump as Asset for 40 Years – Ex-KGB Spy - The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book 29 January 2021
14. Donald Trump Slapped Down - Anders Anglesey - The Daily Mirror - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-london-embassy-protest-ukraine-34803680 5 March 2025
15. The Daily Beast Publishes, Then Deletes Story Alleging Trump Was Recruited by Soviet Spies - Yahoo News - https://www.yahoo.com/news/daily-beast-publishes-then-deletes-234051086.html 22 February 2025
16. Bethania Palma - Did Ex-KGB Spy Say Russia Cultivated Trump as an Asset for 40 Years? - Snopes - https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/kgb-spy-russia 2 February 2021
17. Web Page Template - https://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/kgb.html 24 February 2025
18. Альнур Мусаев - Lenta.RU, https://lenta.ru/lib/14190507 24 February 2025
19. Who Is Alnur Mussayev? The Former USSR KGB Officer at the Center of Explosive Donald Trump Russian Spy Allegations - The Economic Times - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/who-is-alnur-mussayev-the-former-ussr-kgb-officer-at-the-center-of-explosive-donald-trump-russian-spy-allegations/articleshow/118489046.cms?from=mdr 23 February 2025
20. Trump-Russia Steele Dossier Source Acquitted of Lying to FBI - www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63305382 18 October 2022
21. МУСАЕВ Альнур Альжапарович | ЦентрАзия - https://centrasia.org/person2.php?st=1130843514 24 February 2025
22. The Hidden History of Trump's First Visit to Moscow - Luke Harding - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/?fbclid=IwY2xjawF4QMVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHTUQr9-Uo60VpQ1Q7dsglv-4n2TXEnxpGXnQxCICIbIQbhm6wcUpa8jNPQ_aem_LhAtZW4YSd5PFHF439YPCQ 19 November 2017
23. Jeffrey Epstein’s Russian Connection - The Dossier Center - https://dossier.center/jeffreyepsteinrusconnect-en/ Undated
24. How Jeffrey Epstein Tried to Tap Into Trump's Circle - The Wall Street Journal - Khadeeja Safder & David Benoit - https://www.wsj.com/politics/jeffrey-epstein-trump-associates-ab19d1f0 30 August 2023
25. Epstein Files: Full List Of High-Profile People Named In Unsealed Docs - NDTV World – Reuters - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/jeffrey-epstein-epstein-files-full-list-of-high-profile-people-named-in-unsealed-court-docs-4810003 6 January 2024
26. Trump Recruited as Moscow Asset Says Ex-KGB Spy Chief - Kyiv Post - Stash Luczkiw - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47630 22 February 2025
27. Donald Trump Groped Me … Twisted Game with Jeffrey Epstein – Guardian – Stephanie Kirchgaessner & Lucy Osborne - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/donald-trump-accuser-stacey-williams-jeffrey-epstein 23 October 2024
28. References to articles published by Reuters alone about Donald Trump including the words "Russian Mafia" or "Money Laundering" or “Financial Crimes” or “Sex Crimes” are too numerous to list so please just Google them or use AI to list them
This article was first published here on 16 March 2025.
The content of this webpage is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.