Leaked Kremlin Memo: Our US Agent’s Gone Overboard

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I asked my colleague Sean Ogden to keep an ear out for explanations of Donald Trump’s astonishing behavior. Recently, he has heard from some disgruntled Kremlin insiders, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. They sent along this Beyond Top Secret memo. We cannot vouch for its authenticity, but something about it rings true. 

Comrades,

We note with satisfaction the initial success of Operation Krasnov in Washington.

American institutions are weaker. Public trust is lower. Their politics are more polarized. Their alliances are strained. Support for Ukraine has diminished. Confidence in institutions, expertise, journalism, science, and government continues to erode.

For this, you deserve the Order of Lenin. 

However we must also note, with equal clarity, that this has in turn, become a ёбаный цирк — or, in American parlance, “a shit show of unusual scale.”

The operation was intended as a mysterious matryoshka doll, one layer inside another. Patient. Elegant. Difficult to detect.

Our strategy was always based on baroque Russian subtlety. A politician here. A donor there. A media personality asking useful questions. A friendly voice in a think tank. A NRA honeypot fixer. A rumor. A whisper. A nudge. 

Instead, our principal asset has become a marauding bulldozer, busting up the green reflecting swamp, screaming “I win, I win” at confused bystanders. This is now operationally problematic. 

***

The goal was never to create absolute administrative chaos or to fill EVERY possible  position with totally unqualified ungulates. The goal was to place agents who would quietly weaken institutions while appearing normal. Instead, our asset keeps making selections so egregiously ill-suited that even MAGA Americans have started asking whether the chaos itself is intentional. 

This is a dangerous development. 

When Pete Hegseth was given the Pentagon, we knew the snow in Siberia had melted. 

When Tulsi Gabbard was elevated to oversee intelligence, we knew the Volga had run dry. 

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was entrusted with public health, we knew Putin had won the Nobel Peace Prize  

By the fourth appointment, the orange clown car had run over the bear. The dysfunction, outrage, and cable-news coverage were no longer separate effects but a single continuous state. Even ordinary GOP voters began searching for a unifying explanation. 

Comrades, they are not supposed to realize that there is a unifying explanation. 

***

The operation was designed to remain hidden. Instead appointees look and act like mustache-twisting cartoon villains grabbing Moose and Squirrel by the genitals. 

For decades we carefully cultivated covert contacts, influence networks, media relationships, sympathizers, and useful idiots. Now every journalist, historian, investigator, congressional staffer, and unemployed person with a podcast is finding Russian influence because our asset has the subtlety of an H-bomb on an atoll.  

Every week our asset generates enough noise to bury three influence operations and expose two others. Epstein birthday cards, global tariffs, kidnapping Venezuelan presidents, stealing nations, constitutional violations, Iranian surrenders, Italian insults, and ever-expanding profiteering schemes.  

This is not how espionage is supposed to work. A successful operation makes people quietly doubt reality. Our asset is making them inspect the wiring. 

At this point, half of Washington suspects everyone else of being a Russian or Israeli asset.  This is an unacceptable level of confusion even for the country that successfully liberated Afghanistan, defended Syria, defeated Ukraine, and that turns every failure into a victory parade.  

In summary:  

Operation Krasnov has eaten itself — by becoming so conspicuous that people started noticing there was an operation.  

The elegant subtle matryoshka doll became a wannabe pop star riding an off-key wrecking ball into the American psyche.  

Sincerely,  

A Very Tired Kremlin Official  

PS: The next person who describes this as a “masterstroke” will be reassigned to explaining internet PizzaGate memes to the Politburo.  

PPS: If Mr. Trump could kindly stop helping us quite so loudly, we would greatly appreciate it.

PPPS: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not one of ours. We would like that entered into the record immediately.

(This is satire.)