The Red “X” of Arrogance: How Snopes and France 24 Got Lazy and Let a Pro-Russian Hack Rewrite History

I didn’t start out pissed — I started out curious.

When I first read about Alnur Mussayev’s claim that Donald Trump had been recruited by the KGB under the codename “Krasnov,” I figured it was complicated. These stories always are. Soviet intelligence was a messy, layered machine — full of whispers, disinformation, and enough Cold War confusion to make your head spin. I knew that whatever the truth was, it wasn’t going to be neat.

But what I didn’t expect — what really set my blood boiling — was how incredibly lazy Snopes and France 24 were when they handled the story.

Because this wasn’t just sloppy journalism — this was awful journalism. The kind that waves away inconvenient details, ignores critical facts, and steamrolls nuance just because the truth didn’t fit the narrative they wanted to sell.

Snopes didn’t just screw up — they screwed up royally.

When Mussayev claimed Trump had been recruited in 1987, Snopes latched onto that date and treated it like gospel. They claimed that Mussayev’s timeline didn’t add up because KGB defector Yuri Shvets had already said Trump was identified as a target in 1977 — a full decade earlier.

And here’s the part that makes my blood boil: they used that so-called “discrepancy” to discredit Mussayev entirely — as if one offbeat date automatically made his entire claim worthless.

But here’s what Snopes didn’t bother to tell you — or maybe didn’t even bother to research:

Trump’s 1987 Moscow meeting was arranged in New York in 1986.

Let me say that again: The meeting where Trump was groomed and manipulated by Soviet handlers? It wasn’t some spontaneous trip that appeared out of thin air — it was planned in New York in 1986 after Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin flattered Trump over dinner and convinced him to visit Moscow.

You know what that means? It means Mussayev’s claim isn’t some bizarre outlier — it actually fits the timeline perfectly.

Shvets said Trump was identified as early as 1977. That’s the start of the process — when the KGB began tracking him as a potential asset. Then in 1986, Trump’s Moscow trip was arranged — the exact window when the KGB would’ve likely shifted from “identifying” Trump to actively recruiting him.

Recruitment wasn’t a one-day operation. It was a process — the KGB’s entire playbook was built on the slow-burn. They’d spend years laying groundwork, testing vulnerabilities, and planting ideas.

By the time Mussayev claimed Trump was formally assigned the codename “Krasnov” in 1987, it wasn’t some random mistake — it was the natural progression of a recruitment effort that had been unfolding for years.

That’s not a contradiction — that’s textbook Soviet intelligence work.

And Mussayev wasn’t some low-level grunt speculating from the sidelines — he was a career intelligence officer who worked inside the very institutions designed to manage those kinds of operations.

In fact, Mussayev’s background makes him uniquely positioned to know about an operation like this — not just because of his role in Soviet intelligence, but because of the financial leverage tactics that would have been involved. Soviet intelligence didn’t just rely on ideology or blackmail — they exploited financial vulnerabilities to control their targets. Given Trump’s known struggles with debt and his aggressive pursuit of business opportunities in the 1980s, the KGB would have viewed him as a prime target for manipulation. As someone with ties to the MVD — the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, which handled organized crime, corruption, and financial investigations — Mussayev would have had direct insight into how Moscow exploited figures like Trump through shady financial deals, money laundering, and quiet threats of exposure. Mussayev wasn’t just aware of Soviet recruitment tactics — he was in the system that managed those operations.

This man wasn’t guessing. He was in the room — privy to exactly the kind of intelligence information that could expose operations like the one described by Shvets and Mussayev alike.

And what did Snopes do with all that?

Nothing.

Instead of weighing Mussayev’s background, his credibility, and the established timeline that actually fits his claim, they handed the mic to a pro-Russian stooge named Daniyar Ashimbayev — a man whose existence revolves around defending Moscow’s interests.

Who is Daniyar Ashimbayev? Well, here’s the part Snopes didn’t tell you:

• Ashimbayev has a long history of promoting pro-Russian narratives and dismissing criticism of Moscow’s influence in Central Asia.

• He’s spent years churning out commentary designed to discredit figures who threaten Russia’s political leverage in the region — and Mussayev, an outspoken critic of Putin’s creeping influence in Kazakhstan, is exactly the kind of man Ashimbayev would be eager to tear down.

• Ashimbayev isn’t just biased — he’s the kind of political lackey who’d deny a thunderstorm if Moscow told him the sky was clear.

And here’s the kicker: Ashimbayev didn’t just dismiss Mussayev’s claim — he mocked it as a “global circus show” — the kind of sneering, arrogant insult that says more about his bias than it does about Mussayev’s credibility. A man like Ashimbayev isn’t interested in the truth — he’s interested in protecting Moscow’s reputation.

And Snopes didn’t just quote him — they built their entire dismissal of Mussayev’s claim on his word.

They treated Ashimbayev’s opinion like a golden ticket — like one smug wave of his hand was enough to wipe away a credible intelligence officer’s claim that fits perfectly within a well-established Soviet timeline.

And then came France 24, who didn’t even pretend to investigate. They just regurgitated Snopes’ garbage reporting, slapped a smug, arrogant red “X” on the story.

That red “X” wasn’t fact-checking — it was an insult. It wasn’t proof — it was a visual gimmick designed to communicate to viewers that the story had been settled.

France 24 didn’t investigate the timeline. They didn’t ask why a pro-Russian analyst was treated as the voice of authority while a former KGB/MVD insider was shoved aside. They just slapped that big, stupid “X” on the screen and called it a day.

And now? Now millions of people think Mussayev’s claim is a joke — not because it’s been debunked, but because Snopes and France 24 were too lazy or too arrogant to investigate the story properly.

I’m pissed because this wasn’t just lazy — it was beyond lazy. It was arrogance disguised as certainty, sloppiness dressed up as fact-checking.

It’s bad enough when journalists screw up. But when they manipulate their audience — when they use lazy tactics like a big red “X” to bulldoze legitimate claims — they aren’t just failing their readers, they’re betraying them.

Mussayev’s claim might still be unproven — but it’s not some wild conspiracy theory either. It’s built on a timeline that fits, from Trump’s targeting in 1977, to his grooming in 1986, to his recruitment in 1987 — and the man making the claim wasn’t just some random Kazakh official. He was a career intelligence officer with ties to the very institutions that managed Soviet blackmail, money laundering, and recruitment efforts.

Meanwhile, Daniyar Ashimbayev is nothing more than a pro-Russian mouthpiece whose entire role in this fiasco was to provide Snopes with an easy way to dismiss a story they were too lazy to investigate.

Snopes didn’t “fact-check” Mussayev’s claim — they laundered a pro-Russian narrative through a guy who’s been Moscow’s lapdog for years.

And France 24? They just slapped a smug red “X” on the whole thing like that was supposed to mean something.

That’s not fact-checking. That’s cowardice. And if that doesn’t piss you off, it should.

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