File:MoscowAgentGoverningAmerica640x689.jpg

Illustration of concept «Moscow Agent Governing America»

This concept interprets Donald Trump as KGB agent.

The concept is suggested to describe, to explain the apparent collaboration of the American offee Donald Trump with war crime Putin.

The image by euronews.com ^[1], 2025.

Original picture:

https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/11/00/16/640x689_cmsv2_d9e6636a-0a14-5d22-9dd5-afce2f06b96d-9110016.jpg

Original description

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/13/fact-checking-online-claims-that-donald-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb-as-krasnov

Fact check: Was Donald Trump recruited by the KGB and codenamed 'Krasnov'?

By Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 13/03/2025 - 14:27 GMT+1 •Updated 15:22

A Facebook post by an ex-KGB agent claiming that Donald Trump was recruited by Moscow in 1987 under the code name "Krasnov" has sent social media into a spin. What's the story behind the claim? Euroverify investigates.

When former KGB officer Alnur Mussayev claimed that US President Donald Trump was recruited as an asset for Moscow in the 1980s, it set off a storm on social media.

In a Facebook post on 20 February, Mussayev said that Trump was enlisted by the KGB in 1987 while on a trip to Moscow, then aged 40, and assigned the code name "Krasnov".

Trump has not directly responded to Mussayev's claims. The US president has repeatedly denied having ever worked for Russia.

One thread on X, which has amassed more than 1 million views, refers to Trump as "Krasnov" and brands the US president as a Russian asset. The post goes on to list a series of claims which it presents as purported evidence for this declaration.

Viral social media post claiming Trump is KGB asset X

Meanwhile, other social media users turned to mockery, with one account posting a photo montage of Trump in a KGB outfit, with the political slogan and acronym MAGA ("Make America Great Again") altered to read "Moscow Agent Governing America".

One X account makes a photo montage X

Krasnov is a common surname in Russia, derived from the word "krasniy", which means red.

A flurry of speculative media reports followed, and politicians, including British conservative MP Graham Stuart, repeated his claim, writing in X: "We have to consider the possibility that President Trump is a Russian asset".

Does the claim carry any weight?

Mussayev did not provide any proof to back up claims that Trump was recruited by the KGB during his visit to Moscow.

Doubts have also been cast over the position Mussayev says he held within the KGB.

In the Facebook post, Kazakhstan's former spy chief says he worked for the KGB's 6th Directorate. However, sources including the Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency, state that this department did not focus on "recruiting foreign intelligence", but instead on "guarding against economic espionage".

Euroverify cannot verify claims that Trump is a Russian asset.

Facebook post from former KGB agent Alnur Mussayev Facebook, Alnur Mussayev

The amplification of the claims on social media has likely been intensified by the US president's foreign policy stance, which has been viewed as favourable to Russia.

Moving away from the Biden administration's support of Ukraine, the Trump administration has halted military support and intelligence sharing with Kyiv.

That followed a public spat between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a highly contentious meeting in the Oval Office last month.

Trump's 1987 trip to Moscow

Similar allegations about Trump being a Russian asset have surfaced repeatedly in the past. In 2021, American journalist and author Craig Unger published his book American Kompromat, in which he claims that Trump was recruited by Moscow.

Former KGB agent Yuri Shvets — who had a cover job as a correspondent for the Russian state-owned news agency TASS in Washington during the 1980s — was one of Unger's key sources for the book. Shvets told Unger that Trump was tapped up in 1987.

Unger told Euronews there is a clear distinction between an agent and an asset.

"While an agent is employed by and intelligence agency and paid, an asset is a reliable friend who will do favours," he said.

In Unger's book, Shvets alleged that when Trump opened his first major property development, the Grand Hyatt New York Hotel, in 1980, he purchased 200 television sets from the Joy-Lud electronics store, which was owned by a Soviet emigré.

Shvets claimed the shop was a KGB front and that Trump had already been identified as a potential asset by that point.

Warning

The loading of the image is not an indication of the point of view of the Editor on the hypothesis, that Donald Trump as KGB agent had been denoted with family name "Krasnov" in the secret Soviet documents.

The loading of the image is not an attempt of Editor to affect the politics (nor realpolitik) ^[2][3][4][5] of the USA.

If Americans decide to convert the peaceful democratic USA to an aggressive monarchy, to destroy the USA ^[6][7][8], then no scientific analysis can help them.

However, even in this case, Editor keeps his right (and even duty) to call things with their proper names, to suggest definitions for euphemisms and other ambiguous terms, to construct historic models and to compare their predictions to a posteriori observations.

References

Keywords

«[[]]», «Alnur Mussayev», «Annexation of Canada», «Annexation of Crimea», «Annexation of Greenland», «American Kompromat», «Annexation of Canada», «Annexation of Greenland», «Budapest memorandum», «CivilWar2024», «Collapse of USA», «Corruption», «Craig Unger», «Designate Russia as state sponsor of terrorism», «Designate Russia as terrorist state», «Donald Trump», «Donroe Doctrine», «Duration», «Dvizhuha», «Euroverify», «Facebook», «Fascism», «KGB», «MAGA», «Make America Go Away», «Moscovia», «Moscow Agent Governing America», «Putin world war», «Realpolitik», «State terror», «TrumpForever», «TrumptyDumpty», «USA»,

«А нас то за что», «Аннексия Крыма», «Будапештский меморандум», «Всех убьём, всех ограбим», «Движуха», «КГБ», «Коррупция» «Московия», «Спецоперация», «Трамп Дональд Фредович»