cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/50260223
The documents released as part of the Epstein files repeatedly mention young women and girls from Russia. This includes specific references to people from the cities of Samara and Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, and the Chelyabinsk region. One of them may have met the then–Prince Andrew while transiting through London on a flight from the U.S. to Russia in 2010.
[...]
Epstein’s interest in young women and girls from Eastern Europe also appears in his correspondence with Steve Tisch, a co-owner of the New York Giants. In 2013, the two discussed Ukrainian and Russian girls whom Tisch had met through Epstein. Their ages are not specified, and Tisch has publicly insisted that the discussions concerned “adult women.”
In one email to Tisch with the subject line “Re: Ukrainian Girl,” Epstein wrote, “she is a little freaked out by the age difference but go slow and wati [sic], i will try to convince her not to return to ukraine , having her crying worked.”
[...]
The Russians mentioned by name
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
Vladimir Putin’s surname appears in more than a thousand documents from the latest batch of Epstein files. In correspondence with various people ... the files include a 2017 FBI report quoting a source who alleged that Epstein had been involved in managing Putin’s shadow assets. Sources cited by the British tabloid The Daily Mail have gone further, speculating that Epstein may have acted as an intelligence asset for the Russian authorities.
Maria Drokova, Former press secretary of the Kremlin-sponsored youth organization Nashi
Maria Drokova’s name appears in an email Epstein received in the spring of 2017 from a sender whose identity was redacted. The sender described her 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.”
Later that summer, Drokova herself wrote to Epstein, pitching ideas for promoting his personal brand — including making a film about him, creating an “Epstein Prize” modeled on the Nobel Prize, or launching a foundation to combat “women’s harassment.” Two years later, in a separate exchange, Epstein asked Drokova to send him nude photographs of herself.
[...]
Ilya Ponomarev, Former State Duma lawmaker
Boris Nikolic — a venture capitalist, former adviser to Bill Gates, and named as an executor in Epstein’s will — wrote to Epstein ... that Ponomarev would eventually [replace Putin] and become Russia’s president — “if he d=es [sic] not killed before.”
[...]
I would really not be surprised to eventually learn that he was working with both Mossad and the FSB. Enticing politicians and public figures into extremely fucked up compromising positions was a bread-and-butter tactic of the KGB during the Cold War that they commonly used to try to get leverage on people. The FSB is just rebranded KGB under the Russian Federation instead of the Soviet Union.
That said: at this point, from the data released thus far, it does largely appear to be Mossad-driven. But time will tell the full story. Hopefully.
I don't know how that would work: what if both the Mossad and FSB wanted leverage on the same target? Would Epstein be giving the blackmailing material to both parties? I don't think so.
The story seems to be much simpler, considering who his wife is.
Epstein didn't have a wife.
yeah sorry, lover/partner. I mean, they dated for 10 years...
If Mossad was willing to pay for compromising material, which Epstein knew the KGB secretly already had, why would Epstein care at all? Take the money, give the material, and he’ll be all the richer and more well connected for it.
Sure, I'm not talking about Epstein's not wanting to do it, but the FSB and Mossad. I can understand both your point and @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works, but it seems a bit far-fetched in comparison to the Mossad-centric narrative. Also, considering what the USA's government has come to, I wouldn't be so sure that the DOJ docs didn't have fake stuff planted in them to steer the story in whatever direction they prefer.
I find quite unsettling the way I'm getting downvoted just by expressing, in a respectable manner, the most viable option and read we have today, as even @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works pointed out:
Am I missing something?
Several thousand mentions of Russia, Moscow and Putin in the Trump-Epstein files, maybe?
I have no firm opinion on whether Epstein's primary allegiance was to Russia, Israel or some other entity, or whether he was a freelancer. But I think it's wrong to discount his numerous and deep Russian connections.
Yeah, I think your posturing isn’t too far fetched either.
Isn’t it interesting that, even here as you pointed out, people often have the de facto response of attacking ideology they disagree with? Sure, it’s just a downvote… but as you said, you’re being respectful and merely expressing your own thought process. I don’t think you’re missing anything. I think, instead, you’re noticing part of the very problem which lets people like Trump ascend into power at all.
Yeah - I tend to downvote stuff that’s aggressively dogmatic, especially if the user is being a combative asshole about it, but simply offering an alternative hypothesis is, in my book, not grounds for getting ratioed.
It’s frustrating to see @lauseta@piefed.social getting that treatment. It discourages open discussion and makes this place more of an echo chamber, which is absolutely a bad thing.
FWIW, I don’t like that you’re getting downvoted swamped either; you’re simply expressing a hypothesis for discussion, which is why many of us post here.
I would like to point out that in the excerpt you quoted from me, “at this point” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I expect we will learn more things about more players in this whole clusterfuck saga in the coming months and years. And it is very important to point out that Russia did run a ton of influence and cyberattack operations in support of the orange campaign all the back from 2015-16, and hasn’t really stopped. And that the lineage of the FSB and the parallel tactics to the KGB that I’m sure they quietly employ should not be trivially dismissed, even if there’s no overt evidence of it at the moment.
That’s the thing with “great power” geopolitics, both now and in the Cold War - there’s an absolute fuck load going on behind the scenes that the vast majority of us are generally not privy to until (at least) well after the fact