Harding presents three theories about Trump’s Russia policy
Luke Harding, who served as the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief from 2007 to 2011, has published “Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest.” Guardian Faber publishes the UK edition this week; Politikens Forlag releases a Danish edition this week, with Italian, Finnish, and Ukrainian editions to follow.
In the book, Harding argues that Trump’s actions toward Russia “align closely with the Kremlin’s interests” and characterizes his posture toward Putin in his second term as “weird and perplexing,” pointing to the 2025 Alaska summit as a representative example. At the Anchorage meeting, Harding writes, Trump met Putin at the airport with a red-carpet welcome, applauded his counterpart, and allowed Putin to speak first at their joint press conference — a dynamic Harding describes as “a bizarre act of deference.”
Harding outlines three overlapping explanations for Trump’s behavior. The first is ideological: Harding writes that “Maga supporters see Russia as an ‘anti-woke’ kindred state” and that Putin has positioned himself as “a defender of conservative values, under threat from a decadent and godless Europe.” Harding notes that high-profile Trump supporters, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have traveled to Moscow, with Carlson praising the city’s “well-stocked supermarkets.”
The second explanation, which Harding attributes to Fiona Hill, the former White House adviser, is what she terms “strongman envy.” Harding writes that Trump “would like Putin’s freedom of action, when it comes to making money and crushing opponents.” Harding contrasts this with Trump’s posture toward European democratic leaders, noting Trump’s public criticism of Keir Starmer (“no Churchill”) and Giorgia Meloni (“I felt sorry for her”).
The third theory is kompromat, a KGB term for potentially compromising material. Harding draws on declassified records indicating that Czechoslovakia’s secret police began spying on Trump in the 1970s after he married a woman from behind the Iron Curtain. Harding writes that Trump visited Moscow in 1987 on a trip organized by a Soviet state agency and made subsequent visits, including his 2013 trip for the Miss Universe pageant.
Harding cites a 2020 US Senate intelligence committee report alleging that the FSB operated secret cameras inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow during Trump’s 2013 stay. “There will be tapes,” Harding writes. “They may be innocuous. But Putin knows what they show, and Trump knows that Putin knows.”
Harding supports the surveillance claim with his own experience as a Moscow-based correspondent. He describes a break-in at his family’s Moscow apartment shortly after his 2007 arrival, in which the window of his son’s bedroom was forced open, leaving a drop to the courtyard below. The British embassy advised him that his home was bugged, he writes, and over the next four years he experienced intermittent harassment, including mysterious break-ins and a summons to Lefortovo, the FSB’s pre-detention facility.
In the Guardian column accompanying the book, Harding raises whether Trump fits the definition of a “Russian asset” but concludes that the terminology does not much matter. Citing chess champion Garry Kasparov, Harding writes: “If Trump were an asset, or an agent of influence, what exactly would he do differently?”
Harding writes that since 2025 Trump has stopped direct US military aid to Kyiv, humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, and “repeated Kremlin lies and disinformation.” Harding links the Patriot interceptor shortfall to civilian deaths as Russia bombards Kyiv with kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles, and reports that the US has refused to allow Kyiv to develop its own version of the system under license.