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Detained Belarusian model Anastasia Vashukevich leaves Thai immigration department in Bangkok on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Belarusian ‘sex training’ model Anastasia Vashukevich, aka Nastya Rybka, arrested in Russia for prostitution after being deported from Thailand

  • Vashukevich pleaded guilty in Thailand to multiple charges, including solicitation, and was arrested on a stopover in Moscow on way to Belarus
  • She had previously claimed she had proof Russia influenced Trump’s election, and was involved in scandal involving an oil tycoon and the deputy prime minister
Thailand

A Belarusian model who claimed she had evidence of Russian efforts to help US President Donald Trump win office was detained at a Moscow airport on Thursday on prostitution allegations, police said. She had just been deported from Thailand after being convicted of participating in a “sex training course”.

Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, had been held for nine months in a Thai prison along with several others after a police raid last February in Pattaya.

She was booked to fly to Minsk, Belarus, but was detained along with three others travelling with her as she changed planes in Moscow, according to her husband and another person who was with her.

In a case that veered between salacious and bizarre, Vashukevich said she had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska – a one-time associate of Trump’s disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort.

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a woman who called herself Nastya Rybka, described as an escort, aboard a yacht, in a video uploaded by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. They were joined on the yacht by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko. Photo: Alexei Navalny via YouTube

She then set tongues wagging by promising to reveal “missing puzzle pieces” regarding claims the Kremlin aided Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory.

But the material never surfaced and critics dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt.

Vashukevich also posted video of Deripaska meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko on a yacht, but Deripaska has denied wrongdoing, and no evidence has emerged that she possessed any new details about the election.

Model who claims to have proof of Trump secrets set to begin trial in Thailand

Soon after Vashukevich’s apparent connection to Deripaska came to light early last year, she and several Russians were arrested while conducting what she described as a sex training seminar for Russian tourists in the Thai resort town of Pattaya.

Anastasia Vashukevich was deported from Bangkok on January 17. Photo: AP

In the Pattaya seminar led by Alex Kirillov, a self-styled Russian seduction guru, some participants wore shirts that said “sex animator” – though one person at the time described it as more of a romance and relationship course.

Kirillov told reporters on Tuesday outside court that he believed they were set up. “I think somebody ordered (our arrest) … for money.”

Vashukevich pleaded guilty alongside seven others to multiple charges, including solicitation and illegal assembly at a Pattaya court on Tuesday, which ordered the group be deported.

She looked sombre as she entered the courthouse and did not respond to questions from the media.

On Thursday afternoon, Vashukevich and the majority of the convicted were put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow, bringing to an end the Thai side of a baffling case.

Anastasia Vashukevich talks to journalists outside the Immigration Detention Centre in Bangkok. Photo: AP

Thailand’s immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said the last of the group would leave the country Thursday evening. They were blacklisted from returning to Thailand.

It was unclear what would happen to them on arrival in Moscow but the two Belarusians on the afternoon flight – which would include Vashukevich – are expected to not stay overnight and transit to Belarus.

That may be preferable for Vashukevich, who has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and penned a book about seducing oligarchs, because she also faces legal problems in Russia.

Both Washington and Moscow publicly shrugged off Vashukevich’s story, which the US State Department described as “bizarre”.

In an interview with Vashukevich, Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, quoted her as saying that she is looking forward to a free life.

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