It begins with a ruse. A supposedly strictly classified dispatch, provided with a codename like “Frank” or “John,” the stamp “Copy No. 1” and the addition “Declassified.” It appears in a magazine called Razvedchik - an official paper issued by the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR, which does not bear its name by accident: Razvedchik means “spy,” “scout,” or in this case more precisely - disinformation actor in camouflage. What is written there sounds like a spy thriller, like exclusive knowledge, like dark operations beyond visibility. But whoever looks more closely recognizes - it is not intelligence. It is theater. A political stage, built out of phrases that sound deep, but are nothing but propaganda.
In Russia, such an enemy image is created - the West as conspirator, the CIA as puppet master of terror, Zelensky as marionette, France as secret warmonger. These are stories without evidence, without sources, but with dramatic tone - and with a clear message: Russia is being attacked. Russia must defend itself. The spy here does not serve insight, but mobilization. And the astonishing thing is - it is exactly the method with which Donald Trump has been making politics for years.
Trump does not need a state intelligence newspaper. He has Truth Social. Fox News. Talk radio. And millions of followers who believe what he says - not because it is true, but because it feels like it could be true. Like the fictional agents in Razvedchik, Trump claims that dark powers have taken control: the “deep state,” the FBI, Democrats, migrants, judges, teachers, election workers. As in Russia, there are no longer any neutral institutions in Trump’s world - only friend or enemy. Whoever contradicts belongs to the conspiracy.
And like Razvedchik, Trump also stages a false world of fragments, codes and dramaturgy. When he speaks about “top secret” files, about whistleblowers, about “secret” voting machines, when he speaks of an alleged rebellion that only he can stop - that is no accident. It is consciously constructed - like a spy novel in which he himself plays the main role. It is not about convincing people. It is about destabilizing them. The truth is not a means here, but an obstacle. It must be devalued.
In this system, a rumor is enough to drown out a message. A lie, to shake confidence. A meme, to replace reality. The goal is not to be right. The goal is to possess interpretive sovereignty - no matter the cost. Trump, like the Kremlin, relies on this form of control, which does not stabilize through facts, but through narrative. It works because it is simple. Because it rewards repetition. And because it replaces complicated reality with a clear good-and-evil story.
The mechanisms are identical - the enemy is externalized, criticism is pathologized, and one’s own power is sold as protection from impending collapse. In Russia, the West is the threat. In Trump’s America, it is the others - the media, the migrants, the “woke,” the scientists. Whoever contradicts is not heard, but destroyed - rhetorically, legally, publicly. Democracy in both cases is only scenery. What counts is loyalty.
And so, in many ways, Trump truly is the American Razvedchik. Not because he is a spy - but because he conducts the same access to reality as an intelligence service that no longer seeks truth, but simulates a truth. His politics are not fact-based, but driven by atmosphere. His rhetoric is not discourse, but attack. His America is no longer a state, but a stage. And on this stage, whatever feels like truth, is truth.
The difference to Russia lies not in the method, but in the goal. The Kremlin uses this tactic against others. Trump uses it against his own country. But the result is similar - mistrust, fragmentation, and in the end a state in which no one knows anymore whom to believe. Whoever has achieved that has won - not because they are right, but because they have destroyed all alternatives.
Trump has made the information system of America his personal instrument. He has torn down the boundaries between fact and fiction, and built a throne from this rubble. And whoever rules in this new space no longer needs to provide evidence. Only assertions.
In Russia, this is called Razvedchik. In America, it is called Trumpism. But it is the same language - the language of lies, of fear, of power. And whoever has internalized it, for them truth is no longer a category - but an obstacle on the way to total control over narrative.
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