Newly released files show Epstein’s repeated attempts to engage with Putin and Kremlin-linked figures. Photo / Getty Images
The trips to Moscow. The glowing references to Putin. The Russian women. The allies connected to the Kremlin. The use of secret cameras. The demands for information.
Among all the squalor of the Epstein files, the disgraced financier’s fascination with Russia and so-called “kompromat” is impossible to ignore. And it has prompted some – from the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, to British politicians and broadcasters – to ask extraordinary questions about whether he was a Kremlin asset.
As Andrew Marr put it on his LBC radio show, the thought seems “sensational, conspiratorial, a James Bond villain plot in real life”, and yet, he added, “there is so much smoke billowing out”.
Some of those familiar with Russian espionage are certain that Epstein had links to that world. “My sources in America tell me that ... Epstein was recruited as early as the 1970s by Russian organised crime figures in New York, and his information and operational techniques were being used from that point onwards,” Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk, said.
So, what do we know, exactly? And how far-fetched is it really to think Epstein may have been a Russian agent?
One thing is clear from the latest tranche of Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) – the convicted paedophile was riveted by Russia and, in particular, its leader, Vladimir Putin.
Emails show that Epstein travelled to the country several times in the 2000s when Putin first took power, and the Russian leader’s name appears more than 1000 times in the files. They reveal Epstein made multiple attempts in the 2010s to arrange a meeting with him. At the same time, he was still ensnaring the world’s elite, including the likes of Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, in his sprawling web of money and influence.
It appears he may have achieved his goal once, in September 2011, when the financier received an email from an unidentified associate referring to an “appointment with Putin” during a forthcoming trip to Russia.
The nearest Epstein seems to have come to any other meeting was in May 2013. That month, Epstein sent himself a reminder to “prepare putin paper”.
At around the same time, he wrote to Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, claiming that the Norwegian politician, Thorbjorn Jagland, “is going to see putin in sochi”, and “asked that I make myself availble [sic] to meet with him sometime in june”.
Jagland wrote to Epstein a few days later, saying he planned to pass a message to Putin on the financier’s behalf. “I have a friend that can help you to take the necessary measures (and then present you) and ask [whether] it is interesting for him to meet with you,” he says.
Epstein’s reply is astounding. “I would be happy to meet him,” the financier writes, “but for a minimum of two to three hours, not shorter.” Later, he writes again to Barak, claiming to have turned down a request from Putin to meet at an economic conference in St Petersburg, saying the Russian president would “need to set aside real time and privacy” for Epstein to bother.
There is no evidence in the public domain that Putin ever requested such a meeting. Indeed, there is no evidence the pair ever met post-2011, despite Epstein continuing to pursue an audience with the Russian leader until at least June 2018, 14 months before his death in a New York jail cell, when he wrote to Jagland once again to say, “Would love to meet with putin”.
But for Epstein to have set such demanding terms is intriguing. What would occupy three hours of conversation? Is it a sign of a working relationship? Or simply a misplaced sense of his own importance? As ever with Epstein, it’s difficult to tell – the files themselves often cast as much doubt as they do shed light, even featuring claims from a confidential FBI informant that Epstein was, in fact, an Israeli intelligence agent, working for Mossad.
However, what is apparent is that he cultivated ties with individuals connected to the Kremlin.
From mid-2014 onwards, Epstein developed a relationship with a graduate of Russia’s Federal Security Services Academy, Sergey Belyakov.
In May of that year, Belyakov, then serving as Russia’s deputy economic development minister, wrote to Epstein, “Our meeting was really interesting for me! I do not know many people like you, who can open new horizons and prospects.” Shortly after, Epstein invited Belyakov to New York for dinner at his seven-storey townhouse.
On several occasions from 2015 onwards, Belyakov invited Epstein to attend the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which he had been appointed to run.
Epstein, in turn, introduced Belyakov – who he referred to as “my very good friend” – to others in his orbit, including the tech billionaire, Peter Thiel, and Barak.
In July 2015, Epstein turned to Belyakov for assistance. “I need a favor [sic],” he said. “There is a russian girl from Moscow. She is attempting to blackmail a group of powerful businessmen in New York. It is bad for business for everyone involved... Suggestions?” Belyakov is quick to offer assistance, promising to meet with someone who knows the woman in question.
The following year, Belyakov contacted Epstein to inform him that he had taken up a new position at Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, headed by a key ally of Putin’s, Kirill Dmitriev. “I will do anything [that] is helpful to you,” Epstein wrote to Belyakov in an email sent a week afterwards.
At the same time, Epstein was currying favour with Vitaly Churkin, the long-serving Russian ambassador to the United Nations in New York.
By 2016, the relationship was close enough for the pair to be having regular coffee mornings together, and for Epstein to offer Churkin’s son, Maxim, help with his career in the American financial sector. In text exchanges, Epstein emphasised that his involvement had to be “confidential”.
Churkin, who died suddenly of heart failure in February 2017, agreed and thanked him for being “a great teacher” to Maxim.
Nigel Inkster, a former director of operations and intelligence for MI6, says Epstein’s “modus operandi” had echoes of the tactics adopted by intelligence agencies.
“Basically, [you] identify what people think is missing from their lives, and then offer it to them,” he says.
“That seems to have been part and parcel of his general approach, but that’s not necessarily something you would have had to learn from schooling in Russian intelligence tradecraft,” Inkster adds. “He clearly was a natural predator.”
The files indicate that Epstein may have had contact with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian metals oligarch and Putin associate, who has also been linked to Mandelson. Emails indicate the disgraced Labour Party grandee approached Deripaska’s office for help getting Epstein a Russian visa in 2010.
There is no indication that Mandelson knew why Epstein wanted the visa, and further correspondence suggests it couldn’t be obtained, leading to the trip being cancelled.
It is also not clear whether Epstein and Deripaska ever met. Deripaska’s spokesperson told Bloomberg last week that he did not personally know Epstein.
The files reveal Epstein applied again for a Russian visa in 2018. In March of the following year, just months before he was arrested on sex trafficking charges, his legal team asked about transferring his valid Russian visa to a new passport.
Another name that appears frequently is Masha Drokova, a former spokesman for Nashi, a Kremlin-run youth movement set up by Putin’s spin doctor, Vladislav Surkov, to provide street power against potential pro-democracy “revolutions”.
She moved to the United States in the early 2010s, reinventing herself as a venture capitalist and distancing herself from Putin. In 2017, she was introduced to Epstein via email as an “outstanding very successful for her young age lady who will be glad to meet you and show you her current plan to conquer the world”. The sender of that email has been redacted by the DOJ.
By December that year, Epstein was paying for her and a friend to stay at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach. Their relationship appears to be partly professional, and partly flirtatious. She acted as a media manager, and offered him advice on how to clean up his public image following his 2008 conviction for child sex trafficking. At one point, he asks for nude photos. It is not clear if she obliged.
Drokova, who claims to have given up her Russian passport and to have been unable to return, said this week that Epstein had “preyed” on her at a time when she feared for her safety, owing to Russia’s targeting of dissidents abroad.
That account has not gone unchallenged. Russian opposition figures claim leaked files show Drokova continued to visit Russia regularly up until 2021 – including appearing at the St Petersburg economic forum in 2019 – and that she appears to have kept her Russian passport after all.
So Epstein cultivated ties with Russian officials, business leaders and former youth activists with connections to the corridors of power in Moscow. He offered advice and lavished favours upon them. And he regularly travelled to Russia. But to what end?
The Russian spy theory revolves, above all, around “kompromat” – the gathering of compromising material to be used for manipulation and blackmail. There have been multiple claims that Epstein collected such material.
The late Virginia Giuffre wrote in her diary that she believed her abuse had been filmed. Another victim said she believed Epstein took nude photographs of her with “hidden cameras”.
In 2014, Epstein ordered staff to buy “three motion-detected hidden cameras that record”. Emails suggest they were installed at his Palm Beach mansion in Florida.
On the same day the hidden cameras were bought, Epstein received an email from an individual whose name has been redacted. “Remember what we spoke about if you want to put cameras in the house. It will have to be very discreetly done. The Russians may come in handy,” it read.
Which “Russians” is unclear. They are not referred to again in the conversations about the cameras. But this is the first confirmation of previously unsubstantiated reports that Epstein installed hidden recording devices that would be needed to make sex tapes.
What’s more, it is clear this is a man who made demands of those around him. In 2012, Epstein complained to Mandelson that their relationship was a “one-way street”, despite the latter appearing to have fed him confidential information about an EU bailout.
Other correspondence in the Epstein files appears to show that Mountbatten-Windsor passed on confidential details of investment opportunities to Epstein, during his time as a government trade envoy.
Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist, says it is clear Epstein was running an “operation”, adding the key questions now are “what the Russian agencies knew about it ... and to what extent they thought of exploiting it”.
No “kompromat” seems to have emerged, yet. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
We know for certain that Epstein courted young Russian women, who would have presented the Kremlin with clear opportunities for intelligence gathering and manipulation.
Some of them appear to have become recruiters of other women on his behalf.
One such contact, Kira Dikhtyar, a Russian rhythmic gymnast and model, promises “30 girls” to Epstein in one piece of correspondence. In another email, she claims to have a “FANTASTIC” girl from Minsk, but adds that the “problem” is “she is 18 on Sep 29”.
Karyna Shuliak, a Belarusian dentist who met Epstein around 2009, was one of his long-term companions until he died. She was left $100m in the trust agreement that effectively acted as Epstein’s will.
There is no proof that any of these women worked for the Russian security services. But honey trapping, says Inkster, “is an established aspect of Russian intelligence modus operandi and pretty much always has been”.
Any investigation into Epstein must navigate a fog of rumour, secrecy and his own tendency towards self-aggrandisement.
In November 2017, for example, two FBI agents interviewed a “confidential human source” who told them that Epstein was “Vladimir Putin’s wealth manager”. Nothing else in the files seems to support that extraordinary claim.
But Epstein did clearly strain – desperately – to get close to the Kremlin.
Perhaps that culminated in a relationship with Russia’s intelligence services. Equally, it is still possible that, as Tusk suspects, Epstein oversaw an operation that was set up, from the outset, by the Russian secret services.
Whatever the truth, the case should ring alarm bells in the West. “I don’t know if the whole thing was organised. But I think there were security services – whether those were from Israel, Russia or wherever – who knew about these things and tried to take advantage of them,” says Seva Gunitsky, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.