FIVE THINGS ABOUT ANASTASIA V ASH UK EV I CH
1 WHO IS ANASTASIA VASHUKEVICH?
She is a Belarusian woman jailed in Thailand for offering sex lessons without a work permit. She shot to fame in early February when Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s top foes, published an investigation drawing on Vashukevich’s social media posts suggesting corrupt links between billionaire Oleg Deripaska and a top Kremlin official, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko.
2 WHAT IS HER SITUATION?
She told The Associated Press from a police van Wednesday that she fears for her life, and wants to exchange information on alleged Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign for her own personal safety. But she refused for now to offer any such evidence, and it’s not clear if she has any. “I can say something only when I will be in a safe place, sorry,” Vashukevich said.
3 WHAT HAD SHE SAID EARLIER?
Vashukevich had earlier posted a video on Instagram, addressed to “Dear American media. I didn’t want to tell you about many things. Now they’re trying to lock us up,” she said. “But now I’m ready to put together all the pieces of the puzzle that you have been missing, and back it up with audio and video regarding the ties of our esteemed lawmakers with Manafort, Trump and all this buzz arouwnd the U.S. election. I know a lot.”
4 WHY IS THIS SENSITIVE IN RUSSIA?
The report featured video from Deripaska’s yacht in 2016, when Vashukevich claims she was having an affair with him. Russians have focused on the ties between Deripaska and Prikhodko. But now Vashukevich says she can link the Kremlin to Trump and Manafort, who worked for Deripaska a decade before Trump hired him. But Navalny’s report made no claim that Vashukevich knew anything about a Russian campaign to influence the U.S. election.
5 NAVALNY’S VIEW
“I don’t know what to think. Shows like Homeland begin to look entirely realistic when you look at what is happening in Russia now. We thought the scriptwriters made the most impossible things up, but in Russia the most absurd things are possible.”