Charlie Angus, former Canadian MP and leader of Midas Canada, has delivered one of the most blistering takedowns yet of Donald Trump’s posture toward Russia and Ukraine — a detailed, unapologetic indictment of Trump’s long, tangled history with Moscow and the consequences now unfolding on the world stage. Angus’s argument is blunt: Trump’s behavior toward Vladimir Putin and his relentless pressure on Ukraine aren’t sudden political shifts. They are, in his view, decades in the making.

Angus opens by tracing Trump’s earliest documented contact with Russian interests back to the 1980s — a period when the Soviet-era travel agency Intourist, once described by intelligence officials as a KGB-linked operation, invited Trump to visit Moscow. Angus cites testimony from former KGB officers who said such trips were engineered to cultivate leverage: free accommodations, lavish parties, attractive companions, and ever-present surveillance. The purpose wasn’t subtle — gather information that could be useful later. For Angus, this marks the beginning of a pattern.

Fast-forward to Trump’s business struggles in the 1990s. Angus revisits reporting that Trump Tower became a magnet for Russian buyers, including individuals later linked to organized crime and money laundering. He notes that several figures connected to the Russian underworld purchased high-value units, and that the FBI eventually uncovered a gambling and laundering ring operating out of an apartment directly below Trump’s office. Angus stops short of accusing Trump of wrongdoing in those cases, but he emphasizes the pattern of proximity.

From there, Angus reaches the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, financed in part by Russian business interests. According to Angus, this event deepened Trump’s profile in Russia and further entrenched his contacts with oligarchs and Kremlin-linked figures. He also references intelligence concerns in the U.S. and Europe about Russia’s cultivation of foreign businesspeople, and the belief — accurate or not — that compromising material could be used for influence.

Moving into Trump’s political rise, Angus outlines several well-known episodes involving Trump’s campaign and Russia:

• Russian outreach to Trump associates in 2016

• The Trump Tower meeting involving campaign officials and Russian visitors

• Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey after Comey refused to halt the investigation into Michael Flynn

• Trump’s meeting with Russian diplomats the day after Comey’s removal

Angus emphasizes that many individuals in Trump’s orbit — Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Cohen — later faced criminal charges, several of them connected to false statements about their foreign contacts. Angus doesn’t claim that these convictions prove Trump was controlled by Russia, but he argues they form a pattern that Americans failed to confront.

The heart of Angus’s warning, however, focuses on Ukraine. He argues that Trump’s skepticism toward NATO, his criticism of military aid, and his pressure on Ukrainian officials during his presidency signaled a worldview aligned with weakening Ukraine’s defenses. Angus frames Trump’s recent comments about pushing Ukraine into concessions as part of a larger geopolitical trend — one that echoes historical miscalculations like the 1938 Munich Agreement, when European powers ceded territory in hopes of preventing war.

Angus also highlights the present moment: Western leaders meeting in South Africa to discuss Ukraine, even as Trump urges allies to step back. He stresses that Canada, Europe, and the United States all have intertwined interests in maintaining Ukrainian sovereignty. If Ukraine collapses, he argues, the security of NATO’s eastern flank — and countries like Canada that rely on western alliances — will be dramatically undermined.

To underscore his conclusion, Angus quotes historian Timothy Snyder’s analysis of Russian influence in global politics. According to Snyder’s interpretation, Trump’s public image as a successful businessman was bolstered by financial interventions that kept him afloat, making him appealing to foreign actors seeking leverage. Angus views this not as a secret plot, but as a warning about how influence can shape political behavior long before the public ever notices.

Angus ends with a call for vigilance. Whether one agrees with his framing or not, his message is unmistakable: countries like Canada, Europe, and the United States must remain united in defending Ukraine, because the outcome of this conflict will shape global power for decades. The stakes, he warns, are too high for complacency.