Ex-KGB agent says Russia cultivated Trump as an asset over 40 years, and that a network of Russian mobsters, expats, and intelligence assets used him to plant disinformation in American press as early as the 1980’s. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

1988: the asset had paid nearly $100,000 for full-page ads in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and New York Times calling for the United States to stop spending money to defend Japan and the Persian Gulf.

1989: asset attacks Mikhail Gorbachev, saying he has been weak and will be overthrown. In Russia, however, Gorbachev was still immensely popular—except with the KGB. “In 1989, only people inside the KGB could suggest someday Gorbachev would be overthrown.”

Moving US troops out of South Korea and fraying US alliance with Japan were two inexplicable hallmarks of Trump’s foreign policy. They never made sense—as the book notes, Japan is one of the most pro-America countries on the planet. But makes sense if considered a KGB objective.