Anastasia Vashukevich, the Belarusian escort who said she had incriminating evidence tying Oleg Deripaska to 2016 election interference, tells The Associated Press: she gave everything she had to the oligarch, a claim she first made in August while still detained in Thailand.
Vashukevich, who is also known as Nastya Rybka, returned to Russia last month almost a year after she was detained in Thailand on charges of soliciting sex, in what some believe was an attempt to silence her.
Vashukevich, 28, told the AP in an interview Friday that, contrary to earlier reports that she had destroyed the recordings, she had given them to Deripaska because it "relates to him" and that she "did not want any more trouble."
Vashukevich rose to prominence in February last year when Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny published an investigation detailing dealings between Deripaska and Sergei Prikhodko, then-Russian deputy prime minister who played a prominent role in shaping Russia's foreign policy.
Navalny drew on Vashukevich's video from summer 2016 when Deripaska was hosting Prikhodko on his yacht and was caught on tape saying that relations between Russia and the U.S. were bad because of then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
(...)
When pressed Friday by the AP about her previous claims, Vashukevich said she had emailed "everything I had" to Deripaska and dodged a question of whether she kept a copy for herself.
"Oleg (Deripaska) has it all. If he wants to make any of it public, if he thinks that it's a good idea, he can do it himself," she said.
(...)
The Belarusian native who penned two books about seducing rich, powerful men explained to the AP how she changed her mind about who was to blame for her plight in Thailand.
She said he received multiple visits from Americans with FBI IDs who were seeking information about her claims of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. She said they offered her safety in the U.S. or threatened her with a lengthy prison term if she refused to cooperate.
Around the time when she first publicly supported Russia, Vashukevich received a visit from Vladimir Pronin, Russia's newly appointed consul in Pattaya, who she said helped to improve prison conditions for her and the other inmates. She credited Pronin for securing her release from the Thai prison and her deportation in January.
Russian publications The Bell and Proyekt last year pointed to another high-profile visitor who Vashukevich caught on tape spending time with Deripaska.
One video posted on her YouTube account showed a meeting between Deripaska and Adam Waldman, a U.S. lobbyist who has been working for Deripaska and who has had repeated meetings with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The reported January 2017 meeting was several days before Waldman's visit to Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
(...)
When asked Friday if the reports proving the Russian interference in the U.S. elections included recordings of Waldman, Prikhodko and Deripaska, the Belarusian woman said: "I didn't tell you that."
Vashukevich has kept a low profile since her release, a stark contrast to the racy photos that she used to post on Instagram.
On Friday, she would not respond to a question on whether she was currently collaborating with Russian authorities. Her remarks, however, indicated that she may have traded her silence for security.
"Things are so good right now, I don't want this to change," she said. "I don't want to have to have to compare the Russian prison to the Thai prison. I don't want any more trouble."
In her old Instagram posts, Vashukevich used to take pride in manipulating rich, powerful men.
Asked Friday if she was now the one being manipulated, she swore in English and asked "What do you do?"
Belarusian model: I gave info on Trump to Russian tycoon (AP)