MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. The US is no stranger to assassination attempts on its presidents, as history has shown, so American intelligence agencies and the Secret Service will need to stay on their toes to keep President-elect Donald Trump out of harm’s way, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview with the Kommersant daily.

Trump’s security is a major issue, he said. "We know about two assassination attempts on him during the election campaign," said Patrushev, who was director of Russia’s Federal Security Service from 1999-2008. "In general, attempts on the lives of US presidents and presidential candidates are nothing unusual - there have been over 20 of them. Four US presidents were murdered while in office," he recalled.

"Thus, it is of the utmost importance that US intelligence agencies prevent this from happening again," he added.

Trump survived two assassination attempts this year, one during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July, when a sniper shot at him, grazing his ear, and a second in September, when a radical supporter of aid to Ukraine opened fire near Trump’s Mar-o-Lago residence in Florida.

Four US presidents have been assassinated during their terms - Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963).