Something the article doesn't discuss is that Trump may not know he's a Russian asset, not the way Manafort probably does. He's a vain and shallow man for whom self-image is tantamount and the idea that he is in some way subservient to a greater power likely never crosses his mind. Any decent handler would work within the confines of the problem and get precisely the behavior they want.

Soviet construction was a big deal in '87. That's about when the whole American Embassy thing came to a head. The KGB's interest in Trump may have been limited to "this guy builds commercial real estate in New York, let's see if he ever comes in handy as a patsy for properties around the UN building where we can get KGB work crews on board."

Meanwhile, Trump in a hotel room doing pervy shit deliberately walked in on by a maid and then reassured by a "It's a good thing this happened in Russia, where you have friends" from a handler would give Trump to the Soviet intelligence apparatus for a decade or more.

It's also worth pointing out that Putin was plucked out of relative obscurity to be an attache and confident of Boris Yeltsin, the one guy who could have handed Russia over to democracy. Putin befriended him and became the "who the hell is this guy" Prime Minister - odds are good that the KGB surrounded Yeltsin with a bunch of reliable operatives and Putin was the one Yeltsin bonded with.

If you want to see how the FSB runs Trump, you need only watch to see how the FSB ran Yeltsin.