Narativ with Zev Shalev

Narativ with Zev Shalev

The Narativ

NEW ANALYSIS: Trump Is Paying Putin First, With 14 Days Left

Russia helped Trump win in 2016 and 2024, and he paid Putin back afterward. Now he is at 31%, two weeks from the vote, and paying before Russia has done anything.

Zev Shalev's avatar
Zev Shalev
Oct 20, 2026
∙ Paid

The Narativ is a full stack of original news reports and intelligent analysis on the day’s biggest stories delivered to your inbox 5 days a week. The Front Page is free to all subscribers while deeper dives are reserved for paid subscribers - now at 20% off annual subscriptions.

Donald Trump has 14 days until the midterms and 31% approval. In eleven days he has signed four favors for Russia, and Pete Hegseth is sitting on the fourth. Only Trump can say why. Narativ has seen this twice. Russia helped first. Trump paid afterward.

Russia showed up first in 2016. Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee. On July 27, 2016, Trump stood at a podium and said, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails." Russian officers went after Hillary Clinton's office the same day. Roger Stone kept a back channel to Julian Assange and sent direct messages to a Russian intelligence persona. Oleg Deripaska had access to all three, Russian intelligence, Manafort's campaign and Assange. Paul Manafort briefed Deripaska from his second week and gave Russian intelligence the polling data. Felix Sater had written to Michael Cohen: "Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it." China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bibi Netanyahu's Israel backed Trump too in 2016 and asked for their share. Trump won.

Then Trump paid. At Helsinki in July 2018 he sided with Russian intelligence over his own. In 2019 his lawyer's men carried Putin's interest to Kyiv and ran the operation that pushed out his own ambassador, while he held up Ukraine's aid and Giuliani worked the city.

Share

Take me back to The Narativ front page

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Zev Shalev.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Zev Shalev · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture