“No KGB manual anticipated such a scenario”

A few weeks before the American presidential election, journalist Antoine Vitkine deciphers, like a spy film, the troubled relations between Putin and Trump in a doc to be seen this Sunday on France 5. Interview.

Antoine Vitkine, documentary filmmaker and fine analyst of power structures, tackles a dizzying question that has hovered over American political life for a decade: is former President Donald Trump, once again in the race for the White House, is he under the influence of the Kremlin? Through a brilliant demonstration, the director unearths a long history of Russian influence on the American right, and tells how the businessman established himself as the centerpiece of a patient orchestrated game of chess by Vladimir Putin. Thrilling like a thriller, Operation Trump: Russian spies conquering America sheds light on the issues surrounding the November 5 presidential election in a light that is both unprecedented and disturbing.

How did this subject arise?
I have long thought that the strategy of destabilizing Western democracies was one weapon among others in Vladimir Putin’s arsenal. But the war in Ukraine and the prospect of the presidential election have highlighted its absolutely central place. It then seemed interesting to me to trace in parallel the trajectory of Trump, suspected for years of being under the influence of the Kremlin, and that of Putin, the former KGB agent whose relationship with the West is not has never ceased to be part of a logic of infiltration and subversion. Connecting these different threads allows us to tell a single story.

The film supports the thesis according to which the Kremlin holds compromising information on Donald Trump…
There are two hypotheses. The first would be a sexual compromise which dates back to the billionaire’s first trip to Moscow in 1987. But I would lean more towards the second: financial compromise. It is possible that there is evidence of wrongdoing involving Trump and the Russian mafia.

How were the Russian authorities able to take advantage of this means of pressure during his mandate?
The affair of Russian interference in the campaign for the 2016 presidential election has been analyzed a lot, Trump’s arrival at the White House much less. This is, in my opinion, the most fascinating part. I wondered how the Russians were able to exert their influence during his presidency. No KGB manual anticipated such a scenario. After his election, Trump must give pledges to show that he has a free hand: he appoints figures from the traditional line as foreign policy advisors and supplies arms to Ukraine. The work of undermining is progressive: little by little, it challenges support for Ukraine and tarnishes the image of the Ukrainian president. We can guess that levers have been activated.

How does this influence weigh on the current campaign?
The Russians are advancing in a more subtle way. They no longer try to directly access the Republican’s campaign team as they did in 2016. The disinformation strategy on the Internet has also evolved: it now goes through American accounts. The authorities recently discovered that a vast network of pro-Trump influencers very active on X had been exploited with millions of dollars. In the United States, everything is sold and everything is bought, the Russians have understood this well.

The production plays with the codes of the spy film. Was this unavoidable?
This cinema seemed to me suited to embracing the ambiguities, the uncertainties inherent in this type of issue. In the documentary, there is a form of spectacle which has no negative connotation for me. If it can make the background attractive, so much the better. In this case, it allows me to understand the causes of a threat which actually weighs on all Western democracies.

In this thriller, there are no heroes, but quite a few disillusioned senior American officials…
The fallen senior officials of the CIA, the FBI and also the former New York prosecutor whom I interviewed feel a deep sense of defeat. Most of their investigations were unsuccessful. I met them at the end of last year. Joe Biden was still a candidate and everyone understood that he was in no condition to face his rival. There was an atmosphere of the end of the world. These representatives of the American security establishment are faced with a flood of disinformation that they cannot stop. Half of Americans will vote for Trump again. This shows how much the Russian question matters to these voters.