Latest news with #KGB
DW
a day ago
- Politics
- DW
Anne Applebaum: 'If you want peace, you must arm Ukraine' – DW – 07/22/2025
Anne Applebaum is an award-winning historian, writer, and publicist. In an interview with DW, she shared her insights on Russian President Vladimir Putin's goals in Ukraine. She also explained what she thinks the West doesn't understand about Putin, and vice versa. This video is a short excerpt of a longer interview with Ann Applebaum. Below is a transcript from one of the questions. Anne Applebaum: People have been asking this question for a decade. There was a major investigation during Trump's first presidency into the sources of Russian influence on the Trump campaign. It showed that there was influence, but they were never able to prove that there was criminal involvement. We know that Trump has had Russian connections for more than 30 years. He's had Russian investment into his business. And this is not a conspiracy theory. This is all documented. We know that he has had positive thoughts about Russia. We know he's felt very negative about US alliances for a long time. It's in his books from more than a decade ago. All these instincts have been in place even before Putin came to power. Since he's in power, Trump is someone who's very impressed by people who operate without checks and balances, without restrictions, without courts, without journalists. He admires that kind of power. My guess is that he's positively disposed to the Russians anyway and that he's personally impressed with Putin. I don't know, obviously, what their personal interactions are like, but Putin is a trained KGB officer. He would know how to find somebody's weaknesses, and he would know how to find the way to manipulate someone and persuade them that he is his friend. Certainly, it's the case that Trump believes Putin to be his friend, and he has said that, he's used that word.
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Expert shares Trump's two-word nickname as he reveals Russia's honest opinion on president
US security services began investigating Donald Trump in 2015 as he was preparing to announce his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election as a new documentary has revealed what they really think In June 2015, shortly after Donald Trump declared his intention to run for the White House the following year, certain figures within America's intelligence apparatus started scrutinising the controversial business mogul's past. In the subsequent years, numerous allegations surfaced suggesting Trump had received financial backing, or at least substantial assistance, from the Russian state. Writers Craig Unger and Luke Harding have both published books claiming that Trump was groomed as a Kremlin operative following his marriage to Czech model Ivana Zelnickova. However, the reality of the situation is far more straightforward, and considerably harsher, according to former White House national security adviser John Bolton. Speaking in a new British documentary examining Trump, Bolton revealed: "Many alumni of the U.S. intelligence community have said to me that they think that Trump has been recruited by the Kremlin. I don't think so. I think he is a useful idiot." The phrase "useful idiot" became popular during the Cold War era, describing someone who naively advanced Soviet objectives without recognising they were being manipulated. Bolton, with a career spanning four US presidents, made a startling claim in the documentary Trump: Moscow's Man In The White House, suggesting that Vladimir Putin, a seasoned former intelligence operative, has Trump wrapped around his finger: "I think Putin can get him in the place he wants to," he said. "He's manipulable and, does the work that the Russians want without ever knowing it." He elaborated on why intelligence experts, who have successfully turned numerous Russian officials into informants, believe Trump is acting precisely as a Russian asset would. However, Bolton posits that Putin is exploiting Trump's ego for strategic gain rather than financial reward. Trump, for his part, has been less than complimentary about Bolton, his former 25th United States ambassador to the United Nations, branding him "a real dope" and "a nut job." Yuri Shvets, a former KGB agent reportedly consulted by Craig Unger for his book "American Kompromat," drew parallels between Trump and the infamous Cambridge Five – a quintet of idealistic upper-class British spies who passed secrets to the KGB over many years. Addressing claims that he has shown excessive favour towards Russian interests, including allegedly dismissing CIA intelligence on Russian espionage, Trump has consistently maintained that the Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, widely referred to as The Mueller Report, "completely exonerated" him. However, the report explicitly states that Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election was unlawful and took place "in sweeping and systematic fashion." The document also documented numerous connections between Trump's associates and Russian agents. The investigation detailed how a Russian "troll farm" established bogus social media profiles to saturate online platforms with pro-Trump and anti-Clinton material. Among those identified in the report was Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group leader who later mounted a brief mutiny against Putin in 2023 before his death in suspicious circumstances. Mueller's findings led to criminal proceedings against 34 people and three organisations, resulting in eight guilty pleas and one trial conviction. The report stopped short of determining whether Trump had obstructed justice, in part because of Justice Department policy preventing federal prosecution of a serving president.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Putin says FSB approval will be needed for foreign vessels entering Russian ports
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Foreign vessels will require the approval of Russia's FSB security service to access the country's ports, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin. The decree said that permission from port authorities for foreign ships to enter would need to be agreed with the FSB, which is the main successor organisation to the Soviet-era KGB. The new measures came into force immediately after the decree was published on Monday. Previously, entry rules were set by the transport ministry and special procedures were in place at ports adjacent to naval bases, state news agency TASS said. The wording of the new decree made clear it would apply to all ports. It did not specify any reason for the change. Russian ships and vessels of the "shadow fleet" that Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions are closely scrutinised by the West. The European Union last week lowered a price cap that seeks to squeeze Russian oil revenues, and President Donald Trump threatened additional sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless it agrees to end the Ukraine war. Solve the daily Crossword
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Putin says FSB approval will be needed for foreign vessels entering Russian ports
MOSCOW - Foreign vessels will require the approval of Russia's FSB security service to access the country's ports, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin. The decree said that permission from port authorities for foreign ships to enter would need to be agreed with the FSB, which is the main successor organisation to the Soviet-era KGB. The new measures came into force immediately after the decree was published on Monday. Previously, entry rules were set by the transport ministry and special procedures were in place at ports adjacent to naval bases, state news agency TASS said. The wording of the new decree made clear it would apply to all ports. It did not specify any reason for the change. Russian ships and vessels of the "shadow fleet" that Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions are closely scrutinised by the West. The European Union last week lowered a price cap that seeks to squeeze Russian oil revenues, and President Donald Trump threatened additional sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless it agrees to end the Ukraine war. REUTERS
Extra.ie
2 days ago
- Politics
- Extra.ie
How Guinness stars in one of the greatest spy stories of War
Guinness may be 'good for you', but it was also the code word used in Soviet spies' secret meetings in the last century. As two of Russia's best spies met undercover in London, one would say: 'Stout is not good… I prefer lager' to which their fellow agent would reply: 'I think Guinness is best.' One of the greatest spy stories, beginning before the Second World War, is told by historian Ben Macintyre – and Guinness played a vital role. Pic:Agent Sonya, his vivid depiction of Russian spy Ursula Kuczynski Burton, who conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the 20th century, is a bestseller. Born to a German Jewish family, Kuczynski Burton–Sonya was a Communist activist who spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s, most famously as the handler of nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs. Kuczynski Burton planned an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, spied on the Japanese in Manchuria and prevented nuclear war (or so she believed) by stealing the science of atomic weaponry from Britain to give to Moscow. Pic: Dave Rushen/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) In London, Russian agent Alexander Feklisov would visit the Nag's Head pub while carrying a copy of the Tribune to meet Klaus Fuchs. Feklisov would bring over a beer to Fuchs and say: 'Stout is not good. I prefer lager.' To which Fuchs would reply: 'I think Guinness is best.' Every few months, Fuchs met Feklisov at various pubs drinking Guinness and lager, handing over a fresh trove of secret scientific intelligence: Britain's atomic bomb planning, the construction of experimental reactors, notes on plutonium production and precise calculations of the nuclear tests that would enable Soviet scientists to assess the Western nuclear stockpile. Macintyre's book tells how Fuchs returned from the US to take up a post as head of Theoretical Physics at the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment, where scientists were designing a nuclear reactor to produce energy for civilian use. A second, secret agenda was the production of plutonium for making atomic weapons independently of the US. Fuchs was a pivotal member of the team. As a GRU (soviet military intelligence) officer, Kuczynski Burton was unaware of his return, for Fuchs was now a KGB asset. For a time, he eschewed spying, but after a year back in Britain, he received instructions to meet a KGB contact. An unidentified GRU chief is reported to have observed during the war, 'If we had five Sonyas in England, the war would end sooner'. Kuczynski Burton moved to East Germany in 1950 when Fuchs was unmasked, and published a series of books about her espionage activities, including her bestselling memoir, Sonja's Rapport. She died in 2000, aged 93
