Overview

Donald Trump Recruited By KGB Under Codename Krasnov refers to an allegation by Alnur Musayev, the former head of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee, that President Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987 as a spy under the codename "Krasnov." Mussayev first alluded to this in a Facebook post in 2018 and made the full allegation on Facebook in February 2025. The accusations spread across social media quickly, fuelling conspiracy theories about Trump's ties to Russia. These claims by Musayev, however, are entirely unverified.

Background

On July 18th, 2018, the Facebook^[1] account belonging to Alnur Mussayev, who appears to be the same Mussayev who worked as the former head of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee, made a post suggesting that Trump could be working with Russia for the KGB.

In the post, he wrote, "Based on my experience of operational work at the KGB-KNB, I can say for sure that Trump belongs to the category of perfectly recruited people. I have no doubt that Russia has a compromise on the President of the United States, that for many years the Kremlin promoted Trump to the position of President of the main world power." The post gained over 1,800 shares in seven years.

On February 20th, 2025, Mussayev made another post on Facebook^[2] directly claiming that Donald Trump was hired by the KGB in 1987 under the codename "Krasnov."

He wrote, "The most important area of work of the 6th Department was the acquisition of spies and sources of information from among businessmen of capitalist countries. It was in that year that our Department recruited the 40-year-old businessman from the USA, Donald Trump, nicknamed 'Krasnov.'" The post gained over 990 shares and 350 comments in a day.

Online Reactions

The rumor garnered viral spread on social media shortly after. On February 20th, 2025, X^[3] user @golub posted a screenshot of the Facebook post, garnering over 37,000 likes in a day. X^[4] user @YourAnonTV shared the rumor that same day, garnering over 31,000 likes in the same span of time.

That same day, X^[5] user @golub posted images of a newspaper clipping and photograph of Trump and his first wife Ivana in Russia in 1987, a trip they reportedly made to see if they could build a hotel in Moscow,^[6] garnering over 320,000 views and 12,000 likes in a day.

Later that night, X^[7] user @CanadianKobzar posted, "Why is Donald Trump's nick name 'Krasnov'?" garnering over 14,000 likes in a day.

On February 21st, X^[8] user @YourAnonNews posted an AI-generated image of Trump holding a sign reading "I am Krasnov," writing, "Elon probably fucked with the algorithm but it would be sweet if we could get #Krasnov trending ;)," garnering over 26,000 likes in under a day.

Also on February 21st, 2025, Redditor u/sandozguineapig posted a Jim Halpert Whiteboard meme about the rumor to the subreddit /r/adviceanimals,^[9] garnering over 800 upvotes in roughly three hours.

Jaroslav Jansa's StB Security File

As the rumors of Donald Trump's alleged recruitment by the KGB spread, an image of an StB security file on Trump made by the Státní bezpečnost, which was the Czechoslovak political police, an intelligence service, spread online. The file was reportedly made against Trump by the intelligence service when they were investigating him, as reported by The Guardian^[10] in October 2018.

The file was mistaken by some as being made by Trump as the rumors spread, however, this is not evidence of his being a spy, but rather, evidence he was being spied on.

Search Interest

External References