A self-described sex expert whose videos highlighted the ties between one of Russia's richest men and the Kremlin has been jailed in Thailand and is calling for US help, claiming she has information about links between Russia and President Donald Trump.
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 in custody on Tuesday, she published Instagram videos asking US 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 on Tuesday to back up the claim that she had new information to offer on the investigation into Russian interference in the US election. A post to her Instagram account showed her sitting on the floor of what was described as a Thai jail and said she was sick.
"I am the only witness and the missing link in the connection between Russia and the US 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 US 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."
