What If the Krasnov Theory Is Right? I Can’t Believe I’m Writing This

A Spy Thriller Unfolding in Plain Sight?

When I first wrote about the “Krasnov theory” — the idea that Donald Trump might have been cultivated by Russian intelligence under a KGB codename — I approached it with the same suspicion any sane person would bring to a claim that sounds like it was pulled from the writers’ room of The Americans (read it here). Yes, the theory was seductive. Yes, there were crumbs worth picking at. But no, I didn’t fully buy it.

Still, I let myself chase the “what if?”
That piece is here.

The story never left me.

Because even if it isn’t true — even if Trump isn’t some covert Russian asset — the question remains: if he were, what would the evidence look like?

I used to think the evidence would have to be big. Obvious. A smoking gun in a safe. An intercepted call. But what if it’s subtler than that? What if it’s hiding in plain sight — or worse, disguised as incoherence, incompetence, or randomness?

And now… I can’t stop thinking about Russia’s absence from Trump’s tariff blitz.

Let’s review. Yesterday, Trump rolled out one of the most sweeping tariff programs in U.S. history. Over 100 countries were hit — from China and Germany to tiny islands in the Pacific that can barely field a customs agent. But one country was missing: Russia.

You read that right. Russia — America’s primary geopolitical adversary, still entrenched in a war against U.S.-backed Ukraine — was left off the list.

The White House claimed there was no point in adding Russia. “Zero trade,” they said. Existing sanctions had already crippled commerce between our two countries.

Except… that’s not true.

According to the 2025 U.S. Trade Estimate Report, bilateral trade between the U.S. and Russia still amounted to $5.2 billion last year. Russia was still exporting key commodities like fertilizer and aluminum to the U.S. — products critical to our agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

So why the exemption?

The White House claims it’s symbolic. Sanctions have supposedly done the job already. But again — if that’s the case, why not at least gesture at parity and add Russia to the list anyway, like we did for another 60 countries?

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to find that odd. You just have to be paying attention.

Trump’s behavior toward Russia has long raised eyebrows — not just for warmth, but for persistent, suspicious patterns that defy normal diplomatic logic.

We saw it in his refusal to criticize the Russian president, even after confirmed election interference in 2016.

We saw it in the private Oval Office conversations he had with Russian officials — with no U.S. interpreter present.

We saw it when Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was caught sharing internal polling data with a Russian operative during the campaign.

We saw it in his first term when, even amid U.S. intelligence reports of Russian cyberattacks, Trump shut down a key CIA program aimed at stopping Russian influence in Syria.

We saw it when Trump met privately with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018 with no American interpreter or aides present, raising alarms throughout the intelligence community. The secrecy of that conversation, and Trump's refusal to share any notes or details afterward, remains one of the most baffling moments in modern U.S. diplomacy. Read more here.

And then there’s the long view — the slow drip of pro-Russia sentiment, the shifting explanations, the ever-changing tone. You can track it all in this running timeline of Trump’s statements on Russia. It’s not fiction. It’s the record.

Fast forward to now. Trump is in his second term. Putin is still grinding away in Ukraine. And Trump? He wasted no time.

Early in the year, he floated the idea of expanding U.S. territory — not metaphorically, but literally. Greenland. Canada. Even the Panama Canal. In March, Trump stood before Congress and declared, "We need Greenland for national security and even international security... One way or another, we're going to get it." CBS covered the moment. He also suggested the U.S. should “take back control” of the Panama Canal. Canada, he said offhandedly, had "too many resources to be left alone."

It sounded ludicrous. But maybe that’s the point. Float the fringe ideas. Normalize expansionism. Blur the moral line. So when Putin makes a play for more Ukrainian territory — or for Moldova, or Kazakhstan — he can shrug and say, "Don’t blame me for doing what America dreams of."

In parallel, Trump began floating the idea of lifting sanctions on Russia — but only if Putin agreed to a ceasefire that would effectively freeze the war along the current front lines. The terms would leave Ukraine boxed in, weakened, and without any of the territorial concessions it needs to rebuild sovereignty. In the short term, Russia got exactly what it needed: a reprieve — especially for its battered energy infrastructure, where Western strikes had begun to hit critical power generation. What looked like diplomacy was, in substance, a bailout. It wasn’t negotiation; it was submission. And Putin didn’t need to lift a finger. Read that story here.

Earlier this year, Trump had reportedly ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive operations against Russia — a classified directive that stunned officials and gave Moscow breathing room in cyberspace (with nothing in return, they are still attacking us). The move looked like a one-sided cyber truce.

Then came the tariffs. Trump unleashed one of the most destructive global trade offensives in modern memory. But Russia? Curiously spared. I wrote about that exemption here.

Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff blitz — a global gut-punch masquerading as economic justice — landed like a hammer. A baseline 10% duty hit nearly every trading partner, with steeper penalties for the usual suspects. The Dow shed over 1,600 points in a single day, its worst drop since the pandemic years, as investors blinked at the sheer scale of economic self-sabotage and it’s still dropping as I write this. China responded within hours, slapping retaliatory tariffs on all American goods. And that’s likely just the beginning. Europe’s bracing. Japan’s fuming. Canada’s livid. A global trade war is no longer a possibility — it’s a headline. Here’s the story.

And just as markets are collapsing, Trump fired the head of the NSA — the very official who had recently warned that Russia was targeting encrypted communications like Signal. At a time when U.S. cyber defenses were already stretched thin, the axe came down.

Yes, the app Signal. We reported on how national security has been dangerously reduced to group chats — and why it matters — here.

If Putin had kompromat on Trump — if Trump was Krasnov — this would be the moment. Go for broke. But not in a blaze. In increments. Bit by bit.

• Weaken NATO? Check.

• Shatter alliances? Check.

• Rattle global trade with tariffs that spare only Russia? Check.

• Halt offensive cyber operations against Moscow? Check.

• Appoint a pro-Russia Secretary of Defense, Direct of National Intelligence and Vice President? Check.

• Fire the NSA chief after he warns about Russian espionage? Check.

• Echo expansionist fantasies about Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal — legitimizing the very territorial grabs Putin is condemned for? Check.

• Ukraine, left against the wall. Check.

• Allies blindsided. U.S. security, unguarded. Check.

This isn’t just chaos. It’s choreography. And if it’s not Putin pulling the strings, it’s someone dancing to his tune.

So what’s next?

American civil war — or American collapse?

So I go back to the question that haunts me: When is the long-awaited coup de grâce?

Or has it already begun?

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Let me be clear. I’m still skeptical of the full Krasnov theory. It may be an elaborate mirage, fed by the internet’s appetite for intrigue.

But even if Trump isn’t a secret Russian agent, his behavior can’t be waved off as random anymore.

When you look at the long arc — from the whispers in 1985 to the maneuvers of 2025 — the pattern becomes harder to ignore. And now, Russia’s free pass in Trump’s tariff crusade? It isn’t just an economic quirk. It feels like a message.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the answer to a question we’ve been afraid to ask.