A former head of the Ukrainian intelligence service says that Putin’s team deliberately applies these techniques of Soviet origin in contacts and negotiations with Trump
Neurolinguistic techniques inherited from the days of the KGB continue to be used systematically by Russian intelligence services to influence Western political leaders, including United States President Donald Trump. This is said by Mykola Malomuzh, general of the Ukrainian Army and former director of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, in an interview with Kyiv24, where he details the mechanisms behind this influence strategy.
According to Malomuzh, these methodologies remain effective because they are not based on specific informational attacks, but rather “on the prolonged construction of behavioral models aimed at specific individuals”. The goal is not just to convince, but to shape decisions over time.
“They don’t just negotiate. They model behaviors and calculate reactions in advance,” explains Malomuzh.
According to the former head of the intelligence service, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team deliberately applies these techniques of Soviet origin in contacts and negotiations with Donald Trump.
The process follows a pattern: it begins with a detailed study of the target’s psychological profile, with an exhaustive analysis of biography, behavior, fears, phobias and personal vulnerabilities, and culminates in the exploration of these “pressure points” to influence the decision process.
The general also points out as an example of the effectiveness of this method the sudden change in Trump’s position in relation to Ukraine. After the United Nations General Assembly, the American president had reaffirmed his support for Kiev, guaranteeing that it would provide all types of weapons, including the much-desired Tomahawk missiles. However, the situation changed quickly.
“And then Putin spoke to Trump literally two days later, getting him to side with him. This is a real example of the influence of the secret services”, highlights Malomuzh.
This type of approach is not new in Russian diplomacy. The former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, had already described the so-called Gromyko method. Andrei Gromyko, who was the Soviet Union’s Foreign Minister for more than 40 years, resorted to this strategy whenever Moscow wanted to extract maximum concessions from the West.
The so-called “exhaustion tactic” earned him, at the time, the nickname “Mr. No” among Western diplomats.
