‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’

KGB Operatives Urged Trump to Go Into Politics During Late 1980s Russia Visit, Ex-Agent Claims

Yuri Shvets, who was posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, claims the KGB was astonished by Trump’s willingness to repeat their talking points.

Donald Trump was relentlessly flattered by KGB operatives during a trip to Russia in 1987—and they suggested that he should go into politics with the aim of becoming U.S president, according to a former Soviet spy. Yuri Shvets, who was posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, spoke to The Guardian to publicize American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, who used Shvets as a key source. Shvets told the newspaper that Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over four decades and he recalled Soviet celebrations at Trump’s willingness to regurgitate anti-Western propaganda. In 1987, when Trump and first wife Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time, Shvets said KGB operatives went on a “charm offensive,” explaining: “They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day.” Shvets said the KGB viewed its wooing of Trump as a “big achievement.”