We know Trump is a man of exceptional stupidity but sometimes he excels himself. Yesterday he told a meeting of the American National Governors Association: “I’ve had very good talks with Putin” but “not such good talks with Ukraine.” OK, this isn't so unusual for Trump but it came just hours after credible reports that he had been recruited by the KGB as long ago as 1987. You would think he might have enough upstairs to see that reaffirming the belief you have a close relationship with Vladimir Putin in the minds of your critics is perhaps not the smartest thing to do. This was just the latest outburst in the developing spat between Ukraine and Trump.
He went on to accuse Kyiv of talking “tough” but having little in the way of bargaining chips. This is of course because he is withholding them.
In a Facebook post, a former Soviet intelligence officer, Alnur Mussayev, has claimed Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987 and given the codename “Krasnov.” This isn't really new, The Guardian reported similar claims four years ago, that time from Yuri Shvets, another former KGB spy. Shvets compared Donald Trump to Burgess, Maclean, Philby, and Blunt who passed secrets to Moscow before and during the Cold War.
A few months after Trump and his first wife Ivana visited Russia in 1987, he paid $130,000 for a full-page ad in The New York Times, criticising American foreign policy, in which he first suggested the US was being taken advantage of by other countries. A refrain he constantly keeps coming back to.
It was thought he might make a run for the White House in 1988, but eventually he didn’t.
I ask you, does anybody really imagine that (a) Trump himself wrote the words in the ad, (b) he has ever had the slightest interest in foreign affairs and (c) he would pay out of his own pocket to deliver a message very helpful to the KGB. Personally, I would bet serious money the ad text was written in Moscow and paid for by Russia.
Nobody as far as I know, has ever asked him why he thinks European countries for example need to have US troops stationed on European soil or why they spend billions every year on nuclear and conventional weapons. If Russia and Trump's best friend Putin didn’t present a clear threat, neither we nor the US would need all that military expense and we could use the money far more productively. But amazingly, he only complains that we aren’t paying enough while aligning himself with Putin.
Extortion
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has an op-ed in the FT where he makes some fulsome claims for the so-called 'minerals deal' and he suggests the "economic partnership [with Ukraine] would lay the foundations for a durable peace by sending a clear signal to the American people, the people of Ukraine, and the government of Russia about the importance of Ukraine’s future sovereignty and success to the US."
The comments below the piece are utterly scathing. I hope Bessent reads them. Here is one of the milder examples:
However, The New York Times has obtained a copy of the revised deal. It is just as one-sided as the previous version with Trump demanding $500 billion from Ukraine (more than twice the country’s GDP) in return for the $100-125 billion of aid supplied so far.
In the future, if the US supplies more aid (and there are no guarantees in the deal that they will) Ukraine has to pay DOUBLE the price, i.e. $100 bn for every $50 bn worth of arms provided. It is genuinely an extortion racket applied to a nation on its knees after three years of resisting Russian aggression.
His assertions that it represents a good deal for Ukraine would be slightly more believable if Trump didn’t have to threaten to withdraw military aid and cast them into the Russian war machine, in order to ‘persuade’ Zelensky to sign it. The current US administration is absolutely shameless, all of them.
Ukraine has a GDP of about $200 billion compared to America’s $27 trillion. Per capita, Ukrainians have a GDP of about $5,000 while their US counterparts enjoy around $82,000. Despite earning sixteen times as much, Americans are so desperate to become richer still, that they want a slice of all future revenues that Ukraine earns from its mineral deposits. It is really shocking.
I always thought contracts signed under duress weren’t enforceable and there is no doubt at all that is what's happening here.
Starlink
It's not just future military aid either. The latest pressure being applied to Kyiv to force the deal through is the threat of having access to Musk’s Starlink satellites cut off unless Zelensky signs on the dotted line:
U.S. threatened to cut off Musk’s Starlink to Ukraine in mineral negotiations, says report— The Independent (@the-independent.com) 22 February 2025 at 16:21
Ukraine relies on Starlink for internet access which includes military use, without it keeping the Russians at bay would be far more difficult. However, it turns out that Poland are paying the license fees to Starlink and they have now questioned how a private, international contract to which they are a party, can be suspended just like that at the whim of the USA. Polish President Duda visited Washington and met Trump yesterday. I wonder if he had any impact?
I can’t see how that threat is good for Musk either. Italy has already dropped plans to use Starlink to handle government data. Ontario has done likewise. Who would use a service run by a madman and one that the US can use to threaten them?
Musk and India
To describe Musk as a loose cannon is to insult cannons. His DOGE idiots claimed to have found $21 million in US aid was given to India to "boost voter turnout in India's elections." This was wrong but it hasn't prevented Trump from repeating the entirely false claim and sparking a huge political row in India.
Prime Minister Modi has long protested about mysterious foreign interference in India's elections and his aide has described this aid as: "biggest scam in human history."
As the BBC now report, an Indian newspaper has investigated the claim and it turns out India received nothing from America. The $21m was sanctioned for Bangladesh and not India.
I don't suppose Musk or any of his minions bothered to find out Bangladesh is a separate, independent nation. Once something like that gets inside Trump's thick skull it can't ever fully get out and the result is a massive and completely unnecessary political row in a friendly nation.
Musk shouldn't be entrusted with a whelk stall.
