RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin plotted to put Donald Trump in the White House, leaked documents suggest.
The documents, seen by The Guardian, appear to show that Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support the former US president in his 2016 election bid.
Putin is said to have given the go-ahead during a closed session of Russia's national security council on January 22, 2016 with his spy chiefs and senior ministers present.
The Kremlin papers suggest they agreed that a Trump presidency would help secure Moscow's strategic objectives, including "social turmoil" in the US as well as weakening the American president's negotiating position.
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Russia's three spy agencies were then ordered to find ways to support Trump in a decree, which The Guardian reported, bore Putin's signature.
By the time Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican nominations race, the Russian president's expert department recommended that Moscow use "all possible force" to ensure Trump's victory.
Among the leaked documents is a psychological assessment of Trump who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the Kremlin documents for months and have carefully examined them.
The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret and says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view.
The document also appeared to confirm that Moscow holds kompromat, potentially comprising material, on Trump, collected from the former president's earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.
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It refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow but it is unclear what these "events" are.
The paper says: "It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump’s] election to the post of US president."
It adds that a Trump victory would help bring about Russia's favoured “theoretical political scenario”.
Trump becoming president “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system” and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it then predicts.
The paper sets out various measures the Kremlin could adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from the US.
It then lists a number of American weaknesses, including a “deepening political gulf between left and right”, the US’s “media-information” space, and an anti-establishment mood under president Barack Obama.
The paper also states that Russia may insert “media viruses” into American public life which could become self-sustaining and self-replicating.
It added that these would alter mass consciousness, especially in certain groups.
More than that, a Republican victory, it says, could lead to a “social explosion” that would weaken the American president.
It is reported that Moscow believes there were international benefits from a Trump win.
Putin would be able to, in a clandestine fashion, dominate any US-Russia bilateral talks, to deconstruct the White House’s negotiating position and to pursue a bold foreign policy.
Andrew Wood, former UK ambassador in Moscow and an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank, described the documents as “spell-binding”.
He told The Guardian: “They reflect the sort of discussion and recommendations you would expect. There is a complete misunderstanding of the US and China.
"They are written for a person [Putin] who can’t believe he got anything wrong.”
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Wood added: “There is no sense Russia might have made a mistake by invading Ukraine.
"The report is fully in line with the sort of thing I would expect in 2016, and even more so now.
"There is a good deal of paranoia. They believe the US is responsible for everything. This view is deeply dug into the soul of Russia’s leaders.”
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told The Guardian that the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump at the meeting in early 2016 was “a great pulp fiction”
To date, Putin has repeatedly denied accusations that he interferes in western democracies.
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