Washington, April 29: A Russian amateur model has been accused of being a secret agent for the Kremlin, allegedly luring government critics with the promise of sex and drugs.
Ekaterina “Katya” Gerasimova, 19, has been described as a modern-day Mata Hari after reportedly luring at least six of Vladimir Putin’s detractors into embarrassing sex “honeytraps” or online stings aimed at destroying their reputations, The Daily Mail said.
Radio journalist Viktor Shenderovich, 52, who is married with a daughter, has admitted cheating on his wife with Gerasimova. He blasted the secret services for setting him up, the paper said.
Mr Shenderovich said: “Putin’s administration was listening to these allegations with enormous cool, and without denying any of it, they answered with their typical, illegal filth.”
He said: “I did have Katya – without much pleasure though, as she was as boring as your whole dull Gestapo.”
Six Putin critics have been caught in Katya’s trap, all in the same bedroom in a flat in central Moscow, The Daily Mail said.
Eduard Limonov, the divorced founder of the National Bolshevik Party, said: “I do not see anything objectionable about the fact that Opposition men do not refuse women.”
Mikhail Fishman, editor of Russian Newsweek, has also been implicated in the stings.
The Daily Mail said he appeared to be snorting cocaine while Katya “walked naked around an apartment that is believed to have been rented by the secret services”.
It is also alleged several victims were shown paying bribes to bogus police officers.
Mr Shenderovich said other “notable public figures” will be exposed by “Katyagate”, the paper reported.
Katya, nicknamed Moo-Moo, has gone to ground, but was listed as an amateur model with Progress modelling agency in Moscow. The agency said it did not know what its models did “in their spare time”, The Daily Mail said.
The footage was aired by the “Civil Committee for the Defence of Morality, Law and Civil Agreement”.
Experts said the technology used in the bedroom was “sophisticated”.
But retired KGB general Alexei Kondaurov denied state intelligence was involved, The Daily Mail said.
“More likely it was private security firms who had the appropriate technical equipment,” he said.
–Agencies