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Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at a summit in Vietnam (November 2017)
Photo: Jorge Silva / AP
Vladimir Putin is said to have ordered a complex operation by his country's intelligence services to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US election. The Russian President approved a corresponding plan at a meeting of the National Security Council on January 22, 2016 in the Kremlin, reports the Guardian. According to its own statements, the newspaper was able to see internal documents that seem to prove this. She also published photos of brief excerpts from the papers.
There was an undisputed meeting that day. In addition to Putin, the most important government representatives took part, including the then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shojgu. The then heads of the SVR and FSB secret services also attended the meeting. According to the official presentation, it was about the economy and Moldova.
According to the Guardian, however, there was another topic on the agenda: Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate with the most prospects at the time.
The participants at the meeting agreed that Trump's entry into the White House would benefit Moscow's strategic interests: because of potential "social unrest" in the US and because the US President's negotiating position with Russia would be weakened.
Putin's spokesman denies that experts urge caution
The Kremlin vehemently denies this.
The idea that top representatives of the Russian government decided at a meeting to support Trump belongs in the area of "bad fiction," said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov when asked by the newspaper.
However, experts consulted by the Guardian believe the documents to be credible.
The material "reflects reality," said Russian intelligence expert Andrei Soldatov of the newspaper.
The documents correspond to the procedures of the secret services and the Security Council.
The Kremlin is now managing such operations down to the last detail, says Soldatov.
"Putin made it clear to his spies by 2015 at the latest that nothing could happen independently of him."
Other experts, however, advised caution.
The documents could be disinformation, tweeted the former head of the US cybersecurity agency, Christopher Krebs.
The whole thing is simply "too suitable".
Thomas Rid, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and an expert on intelligence and disinformation, was also skeptical.
The Guardian report should be treated with great caution, he wrote on Twitter.
The reasons for this include the timinig, the very cautious wording of the newspaper and the fact that there is no quote from a British government representative in the report, not even an anonymous one.
Should further evidence become public, a reassessment might be appropriate, said Rid.
For now, however, the expert advises caution.
According to the newspaper, a decree that the Guardian said it was able to see "seems to have Putin's signature" on it.
It would instruct the three Russian intelligence agencies to find ways to support Trump.
There is talk of "certain incidents" that would have happened during Trump's Moscow trips in the past
A report classified as confidential with the file number "No 32-04 \ vd" therefore also contains a short psychological profile of Trump and a strategic assessment of the advantages of a Trump presidency for Moscow.
The republican candidate at the time is the most promising candidate from the Kremlin's point of view, it says.
Trump is also an "impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual with an inferiority complex," according to the internal assessment.
The report also apparently confirmed that the Russian services had potentially incriminating material, so-called "compromise", about Trump.
The newspaper quotes from the document that this was collected during earlier "unofficial visits" by the future US President to Russia.
Accordingly, there is talk of "certain incidents" that would have occurred during Trump's Moscow trips in the past.
For details, reference is made to an annex that the newspaper apparently could not see.
At this point, the disinformation expert Rid was particularly skeptical.
This "strange reference" to "Kompromat" is a reason for particular caution.
According to the Guardian, after the meeting of the National Security Council, Putin apparently ordered the formation of a secret cross-departmental commission to implement the plan.
In addition to Defense Minister Schojgu, the chairman, it should also include the then SVR boss and the boss of the FSB.
If the documents were genuine, they would offer a rare glimpse into the Kremlin's decision-making processes.
They would also contradict the representation of the Kremlin, which had repeatedly denied interference in the democratic processes of Western states in the past.
After Trump was elected US president, US intelligence agencies published a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, in which they concluded that Putin had ordered an "anti-US presidential campaign" in 2016.
The campaign was intended to weaken US citizens' confidence in the democratic process, harm Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump.
Special investigator Robert Mueller also saw it as proven that Russia had campaigned massively for Trump.
However, he was unable to prove a targeted "cooperation" or a "conspiracy" between Russia and the Trump camp.
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