UPDATE: Investigative reporter Julia Davis has found video of Russian officials grabbing Vashukevich in the Moscow airport and taking her away.
AFP:
A Russian lawyer representing Vashukevich branded the arrest an "international scandal," saying his client had "committed no crimes" and was planning to travel on to Belarus.
Instead she was "moved from the transit zone onto the Russian territory by unidentified law enforcement employees," said Dmitry Zatsarinsky.
He said employees in civilian clothes "dragged her out of the transit zone" and added that he was planning to lodge an official complaint.
Zatsarinsky posted a video on his Instagram that shows five or six men trying to force a young woman resembling Vashukevich into a wheelchair as she tries to break free.
They then abandon their efforts and simply carry her through what appear to be one-way double doors typically used in airports.
Model claiming Trump secrets 'dragged' into Russian detention: lawyer (AFP)
Anastasia Vashukevich, the Belarusian escort who claimed to have incriminating tapes of Oleg Deripaska discussing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, was released from prison in Thailand Thursday but then arrested again on charges of prostitution at the airport in Moscow while en route to Belarus.
The model ... had been deported from Thailand earlier in the day after spending nine months in prison on charges of conspiracy and soliciting prostitution.
She was booked to fly to Minsk, Belarus, but was detained along with three others traveling with her as she changed planes at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, according to her husband and another person traveling with her.
Vashukevich lived in Russia before traveling to Thailand and, when arrested, was concerned about being sent back.
“I am afraid to go back to Russia,” she said at the time. “Some strange things can happen.”
Her arrest in Moscow was unexpected and blocked her from possibly talking to dozens of journalists waiting for her in the airport’s arrivals zone.
(...)
Vashukevich, a model and self-described “sex expert” also known as Nastya Rybka, became an unlikely figure in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Ms. Vashukevich and Alexander Kirillov, the Belarusian man she calls her seduction coach, were arrested last February while conducting a seminar on seduction at a hotel in Pattaya, a city about 70 miles south of Bangkok that is notorious for its adult entertainment. Also arrested were several Russians attending the seminar.
As Ms. Vashukevich was being taken to jail that day in the back of a police truck, she posted a video of herself on Instagram saying she had information about Russian interference in the American presidential election.
She later said she had 16 hours of audio recordings that could help shed light on Russian meddling in the election and that she would hand them over to the United States in exchange for asylum.
Weeks before her arrest in Thailand, Ms. Vashukevich had come to public attention in Russia with the release of a video by Aleksei A. Navalny, a leading critic of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.
The video included photos and audio recordings from Ms. Vashukevich that she took during a brief affair she had with Oleg V. Deripaska, the Russian aluminum tycoon, while working as an escort aboard his yacht in 2016.
Among them were photos of Mr. Deripaska and his guest, Sergei E. Prikhodko, then a deputy prime minister, and a recording of the two men talking about relations between the United States and Russia.
In August, Vashukevich changed her tune.
Speaking to an AP reporter in the courtroom in Pattaya, Vashukevich said she had promised Deripaska she would no longer speak on the matter, and that he had already promised her something in return for not making that evidence public.
"He promised me a little something already," Vashukevich said. "If he do that then there will be no problem, but if he don't ..." she said with a shrug and a smile.
She also shrugged and smiled when asked if she had kept her own copies of the information she recorded, which she said comprised "some audio, some video."
Asked what the material showed, she said, "You'd have to ask Deripaska."
(...)
[When first arrested, Vashukevich] appealed to America for help and for asylum, through a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, but provided no proof of her claims. At a hearing in April, she seemed to switch allegiances, making a public apology to Deripaska and saying it was the Americans, not the Russians, who were persecuting her.
Model who claimed U.S.-Russian collusion tape held in Moscow on prostitution charges (WaPo)
Escort Who Said She Had Tapes of Russian Meddling to Be Deported From Thailand (NYT)