Questions about U.S. President Donald Trump's possibly shady relationship with Russia and the country's security services have long swirled, even culminating in a special counsel investigation during his first term in office.
Though that investigation found evidence of "extensive criminal activity" by Trump, his associates, and some of his family members, it found no evidence that he was working for, or had ever been recruited by, Russia's security services.
Yet despite this, the topic refuses to go away — most recently in a viral Facebook post from a former Kazakh security official that claimed Trump was recruited by the Soviet Union's spy agency, the KGB, in 1987 and given the code name "Krasnov."
Craig Unger, an American journalist and writer who has written two books on Trump’s connections to Russia’s security services and the Russian mafia stretching all the way back to the 1980s, says he is "absolutely certain" that the U.S. president is a Russian asset.
According to Unger, Trump’s current actions are benefiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, and destroying relationships with long-time allies.
The Kyiv Independent sat down with Unger to hear what makes him so certain.
The Kyiv Independent: A lot of the discussion around Trump and his connections to Russia gets dismissed as conspiracy theories based on circumstantial evidence. What would you say to those accusations?
Craig Unger: First of all, I want to distinguish between an asset and an agent. An agent is someone who has signed on with the KGB, can be given specific tasks, and is actually paid by them.
That's not the way it works with an asset. The KGB made a point of cultivating powerful businessmen — I'm thinking of Armand Hammer. He was an enormously wealthy American oil man, who was very much an asset. And he was sort of ageing out when the KGB began cultivating Trump.
The Kyiv Independent: How certain are you that Donald Trump is a Russian asset?
Craig Unger: Completely certain. I've written two books about it. “House of Trump, House of Putin,” and “American Kompromat,” and not a single fact has been challenged in my reporting.
It really goes back to 1980 when Donald Trump was just starting out and had his first successful real estate adventure.
He's had a lot of failures. This one was actually a success — he developed the Grand Hyatt Hotel right near Grand Central Station here in New York.
And like every big hotel, he needed a lot of TV sets. And he ended up buying them from the Joy Lud electronics store, which was a front for the KGB. And I got that information from a former agent with the KGB, Yuri Shvets.
And it really all started from that. They sent out a spotter agent, someone who's trying to recruit talent for someone who can help the KGB later on — and they came to Donald Trump.And that set off a series of meetings and events, which led to Trump's first visit to Moscow in 1987.
The Kyiv Independent: If you had to pick three things that are the biggest pieces of evidence that Trump was, or is a Russian asset, what would you choose?
Craig Unger: In 1984, a man named David Bogatin came to Trump Tower, which is a crown jewel among Trump's buildings, and put down $6 million on the table and bought five condos. What was interesting about that was that according to FBI files, Bogatin was a member of the Russian mafia.
And this was the first of many such people who are affiliated with the Russian mafia — I found a total of 13 people — who lived in Trump Tower or other Trump buildings.
Trump was hosting the Russian mafia for many years before he even ran for president. So that's one thing.
Trump was hosting the Russian mafia for many years before he even ran for president.
Another is when he went to Moscow in 1987. This was a visit that was set up by the KGB, according to Shvets. And when Trump got there, he was sort of groomed by the KGB.
He came back and a lot of people have forgotten this, but he made a brief abortive run for president in 1988.
He also took out a full page ad in The New York Times (NYT), that was assailing America's alliance with NATO.
People are shocked today that Trump is betraying Ukraine, he's betraying Europe, he's siding with Putin. Well, he did it as early as 1987, when he was starting to run for the presidency in 1988. And that is very well documented, it was printed in the NYT.
It's exactly the foreign policy he is acting out today that is so horrifying. This is the end of NATO, it's the end of the Western alliance. Trump is allying with Vladimir Putin, and against Ukraine and all of Western Europe.
Trump ads in the New York Times in 1987. If you’re thinking about Trump as unpredictable and inconsistent, it’s because you’re blind or stupid. He repeat the exact same thing about NATO, tariffs and other things for almost 40 years since is meeting with the soviets ambassador in… pic.twitter.com/iNaMAGTNTk
— Kim Leclerc 🇨🇦 (@kimleclerc) February 17, 2025
The Kyiv Independent: What has happened more recently to make you believe Trump is a Russian asset?
Craig Unger: You saw him during his first term as president when he met with Putin in Helsinki — he essentially said that he trusted Putin far more than American intelligence (agencies).
And what we see happening now is, he is essentially destroying Western intelligence. I can't imagine Ukraine or any European partners wanting to share intelligence with the U.S., as long as Trump is president, because it's likely to be passed straight along to Vladimir Putin.
The Kyiv Independent: Just last week there was a Facebook post from somebody who professes to have been part of the KGB in Kazakhstan during the 1980s and he said Trump was recruited then.
Craig Unger: Yes, I'm aware of that post, I have not been able to corroborate it. If I'm not mistaken, he was talking about the sixth directorate in the KGB. I'm not sure they were recruiting American assets.
And the first director and the second director of the KGB were doing that mostly. So I really can't corroborate it.
The Kyiv Independent: As an American citizen, how does all of this make you feel?
Craig Unger: I'm petrified, to be honest. When I grew up, the movie that I loved in my childhood was “The Manchurian Candidate,” the original, 1962 version. It posited that the communists had gotten inside the White House. And that was the whole premise. And it was seen as incredibly conspiratorial.
The idea that it could actually happen in some way is just breathtaking. And I think we're entering a new era in the U.S. And we have to fight back.
Because I would very much like to keep an alliance with my friends in Europe.
Kate Tsurkan
