Anastasia Vashukevich, an escort service worker from Belarus who catapulted to a certain measure of fame after filming a yacht trip with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko, was detained in Thailand over the weekend in a police raid on her “sex training” seminar. While still in custody Tuesday, she published Instagram videos asking U.S. journalists and intelligence agencies to help her.
Deripaska, with whom Vashukevich said she had an affair, used to employ former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. But Vashukevich, better known by the alias Nastya Rybka, provided no evidence Tuesday to back up the claim that she had new information to offer related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A post to her Instagram account showed her sitting on the floor of what was described as a Thai jail cell and said she was sick.
“I am the only witness and the missing link in the connection between Russia and the U.S. elections — the long chain of Oleg Deripaska, Prikhodko, Manafort, and Trump,” Vashukevich said in a live Instagram video Tuesday, apparently shot as she was driven in an open-air police van through the Thai resort city of Pattaya. “In exchange for help from U.S. intelligence services and a guarantee of my safety, I am prepared to provide the necessary information to America or to Europe or to the country which can buy me out of Thai prison.”
Anastasia Vashukevich, a self-described sex expert, told AP reporters on Feb. 28 from a police van that she would talk only when she is in a “safe place.” (Associated Press)
A video from a Thai morning news broadcast showed the police operation. Some of those detained were working without a permit, one of the TV hosts said. “Why do they have to use Thailand to teach this course?” he asked.
Russian Embassy consul Vladimir Sosnov told the RIA Novosti Russian state news agency that Vashukevich and several others were detained for being part of an “illegal training session” and that she and her companions would be put on trial and deported. But Vashukevich claimed Tuesday that she was arrested on orders of Russian officials as payback for her video of Deripaska and Prikhodko and that she expected to be sent to Russia, where she would be jailed again.
“Please the USA save us from Russia!” said a post in English on her Instagram account. “All these cases are political repressions!”
Coincidentally or not, one of Russia’s most important security and intelligence officials was also in Thailand on Tuesday. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, former head of the Federal Security Service, held talks in Bangkok on the security of Russian tourists, RIA Novosti reported.
The Washington Post
