Last week’s release of roughly three million additional documents from the U.S. Justice Department’s years-long investigation into the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has shed new light on the late financier’s connections with powerful people around the globe. While references to Donald Trump have predominated headlines, journalists have also identified several high-profile Russian politicians, businessmen, and public figures mentioned in the Epstein files — including President Vladimir Putin himself. Here’s what we know so far.
Editor’s note: The following article preserves the original wording of direct quotes from the Epstein files, including grammatical errors and typos.
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 2018 correspondence also references a modeling agency in Krasnodar called Shtorm and one of its models, identified as “Raya.” The agency’s founder, Dana Borisenko, has denied any connection to Epstein and said that Shtorm never sent anyone to work in the United States.
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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, Epstein discussed the possibility of meeting the Russian president. He even claimed to have turned down an invitation from Putin to meet on the sidelines of a conference in St. Petersburg in 2013, because there wasn’t “real time and privacy.” There’s no evidence in the released files that a meeting between Putin and Epstein ever took place.
At the same time, 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
In January 2012, Boris Nikolic — a venture capitalist, former adviser to Bill Gates, and named as an executor in Epstein’s will — wrote to Epstein about the political activities of Ilya Ponomarev, who at the time was a member of Russia’s State Duma. Nikolic described Ponomarev as the main organizer of the then-ongoing Bolotnaya Square protests and as someone “who might replac= [sic] Putin.” He went on to tell Epstein that Ponomarev would eventually become Russia’s president — “if he d=es [sic] not killed before.”
Vitaly Churkin
Former Russian diplomat
Vitaly Churkin, who served as Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2006 until his death in 2017, corresponded in 2016 with someone whose identity was redacted in one of the documents. When cross-referenced with a separate record published by the U.S. Justice Department, that person appears to be Epstein himself. Their conversation suggests that Epstein helped arrange employment for Churkin’s son, Maxim. “Max doing better,” Epstein wrote. “He just needed to understand American biz habits.” “U r a great teacher!” Churkin replied.
Umar Dzhabrailov
Chechen businessman and politician
According to emails in the files, Umar Dzhabrailov arranged a meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell in Moscow in 2001. The previously released documents also include a photograph of a shirtless Dzhabrailov standing on a manicured lawn. Dzhabrailov told Baza, a pro-Kremlin breaking news channel on Telegram, that he knew Epstein but wasn’t close to him. He said he believes the image was taken around 1990 during a karate training session, though he claimed he could not remember the exact circumstances.
Vladislav Doronin
Businessman
Emails show that Vladislav Doronin invited Epstein to Moscow in 2009, and that he advised Epstein on obtaining a Russian visa in 2010.
Bonus Russian: Vladimir Nabokov
Writer
As music critic Alexey Munipov has noted, Epstein also showed a sustained interest in the work of Vladimir Nabokov. According to Munipov, he belonged to the Vladimir Nabokov Society, received notifications about academic conferences devoted to the writer, and consulted with leading Nabokov scholar Brian Boyd. The released files include photographs showing a foot and a neck with handwritten quotations from Nabokov’s novel Lolita.
