Russia Russia Russia. It's been the story that has defined the Trump presidency from the

start, driven by hard evidence that the Kremlin's intelligence services mounted an unprecedented

campaign to interfere in the 2016 American election. Stealing emails, dumping them through

WikiLeaks, all in order to torment Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump president

of the United States. But now a new story about Russian misbehavior has broken, arguably

more shocking than any that has come before. As the New York Times first reported, and

since confirmed by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, the Russian GRU, the country's

military intelligence arm, was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers

in Afghanistan. We'll discuss what that means with Michael McFall, the former US ambassador

to Moscow under President Obama. And we'll talk to cybersecurity expert Thomas Ridd about

his new book about the long history of Russian active measures on this episode of Skull

Duggery.

Because people have got to know whether or not they're President of the crop, well I'm

not a crop. I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostage. My heart and

my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it

is not. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

There will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth and nothing else.

I'm Michael Isgov, Chief Investigative correspondent for Yahoo News.

I'm Dan Clydeman, Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo News.

You know, I got to say the paying bounties to the Taliban to kill Americans. This one,

I think stunned a lot of people. The reports are that US intelligence first picked this

up some time ago last year. And as the intelligence came together, largely from folks on the ground,

...