Leaked documents from the Kremlin show the Russian President personally involved in an operation to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US Presidential election.
They appear to have come from a closed meeting of the country’s national security council in January 2016, when Donald Trump had become the Republican front runner.
The most significant Kremlin document describes Mr Trump as the “most promising candidate” from Russia’s perspective.
Trump is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex” and his ascent to the presidency “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system”.
The paper says “It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his election to the post of US president.”
They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.
Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.
COMPROMISING MATERIAL
It also alludes to compromising material that Russia supposedly has on Mr Trump. The paper refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow.
Donald Trump has labelled the documents “disgusting fake news”. The Kremlin has dismissed the papers as a great fiction.
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them.
In a statement, Mr Trump called The Guardian’s story “disgusting”.
“This is disgusting. It’s fake news, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA was fake news,” said the former president.