Meeting at sea ‘links Trump campaign to the Kremlin’
Oligarch who was ‘offered briefings’ by Manafort held secret talks with Russian deputy PM, says dissident
A RUSSIAN deputy prime minister met secretly with Oleg Deripaska to discuss US relations after Donald Trump’s campaign manager reportedly offered the oligarch briefings on the 2016 White House race, according to videos uncovered by a Russian opposition activist.
While a recorded snippet of Mr Deripaska’s alleged conversation with Sergei Prikhodko, a deputy prime minister, does not specifically mention Mr Trump, the fact of their meeting on a yacht raises further questions of collusion with Vladimir Putin’s government.
The rendezvous at sea, suggesting a cosy relationship between Mr Deripaska, head of metals giant Rusal, and the Kremlin, took place in August 2016, a month after Paul Manafort, then Mr Trump’s campaign manager, reportedly offered “private briefings” to Mr Deripaska, according to an email seen by The Atlantic, a US news magazine.
The Daily Telegraph could not confirm the validity of the recordings, and representatives for Mr Deripaska and Mr Prikhodko did not respond to calls and written requests for comment.
The metals magnate has denied receiving briefings from the Trump campaign although he admitted he had hired Mr Manafort previously. He is seen talking to Mr Prikhodko in videos on the Instagram account of Nastya Rybka, a model and self-styled “seduction expert” who also posted photos of the tycoon embracing her. A caption said the two men were trying to “solve the issue with America”.
Alexei Navalny, an activist who has called for an election boycott after he was barred from challenging Vladimir Putin for president, revealed the videos in an online investigation. He said taking Mr Prikhodko aboard a yacht with young women amounted to bribery.
Using Ms Rybka’s photographs and open source documents to identify the yacht as the Elden, which is officially owned by Mr Deripaska’s mother, Mr Navalny discovered it had been cruising off Norway in August 2016. The model posted photographs of the Norwegian coastline and herself on the yacht the same month. He also said he found flight records showing two private jets he links to Mr Deripaska had flown to Norway in August 2016.
On Thursday, Ms Rybka posted a screenshot from Mr Navalny’s video thanking him for his “concern” over circulation of a book she has published. “By the way, VVP has already read the book,” she wrote – the initials of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Mr Deripaska hired Mr Manafort on a $10 million contract in 2006 after the Washington insider proposed a campaign to “greatly benefit the Putin government” by influencing US politics and media, Associated Press reported last year. The oligarch denied this and sued, unsuccessfully, for defamation. But he did sue Mr Manafort in January, allegedly for defrauding him of $18.9 million.