Was he trolling for beautiful young Russian girls? Looking for financial opportunities in the vast Russian market? Might he have been a dupe for some duplicitous scheme of Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services?

Or is there some other, equally weird explanation for the fact that Russia was mentioned at least 5,876 times, and Putin’s name some 1,055 times, in the latest Epstein file dump from the U.S. Department of Justice?

One person who wants answers to those questions is Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Announcing on Tuesday that his country will launch an investigation into possible links between Epstein and Russian intelligence, and specifically with regard to any impact the scandal may have on Poland, Tusk said:

“More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services. I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” [Reuters, February 3, 2026.]

There was no immediate reply from the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow or the Russian Embassy in Warsaw to a written request for comment. But in December, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had already commented on the Epstein files, which she described as indicative of the hypocrisy of Western elites:

“Here, as I understood, were all the Western ‘lecturers on life’ who looked down on Russia and who lectured us about ‘democracy and human rights’ in interesting poses with equally interesting leisure partners.” [Id.]

*. *. *

Donald Tusk is not the only European leader to express concern about possible Russian involvement with Epstein. French and British intelligence agencies are likewise trying to establish whether this might have been what one called “the world’s largest honeytrap operation”: how many people Epstein may have dragged into his Tenth Circle of Hell, for whose benefit (his own, or Russia’s), for what purpose, and how the material may have been used or intended to be used. [Ben Macintyre, The Times, February 6, 2026.]

According to The Times’ Ben MacIntyre, the entire operation bears the unmistakable “fingerprints” of Russian kompromat — the collection and/or invention of compromising material for the explicit purposes of blackmail, coercion, political leverage . . . and sometimes the total destruction of the targeted individual’s personal and professional life. As Macintyre accurately points out, “kompromat need not be genuine to be effective.” [Id.]

Epstein is said to have visited Russia multiple times, and tried to arrange a meeting with Putin — though it is unclear whether he succeeded. He arranged Russian visas for others, and claimed to have links to members of the Russian elite, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin. [Id.]

Mysteriously, two days before his suicide, Epstein left the bulk of his fortune to a 36-year-old Belarusian dentist. And it has now been learned that, following his sex trafficking conviction, he hired publicist Maria Drokova (now known as Masha Bucher) — a former press secretary of the Kremlin youth group known as Nashi (“Ours”) — to help restore his public image. With Epstein’s help, Bucher went on to become a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and in turn was able to introduce Epstein to at least nine startups-up founders. [Id.]

There is more — much more. But, in addition to the horrific physical and psychological suffering of the legion of Epstein’s victims, and the damage to the reputations of prominent people who may, or may not, be guilty of the actions set out in the millions of pages thus far produced, we now have to consider the possibility that some or all of it could be the product of Russian kompromat.

And that opens the door to the likelihood that at least a portion of it has been manufactured or exaggerated.

As The Times’ Macintyre points out:

“[In Stalin’s time] some of the evidence was fabricated: planted drugs, doctored images, forged financial records. But Stalin’s blackmailers found that by far the most effective kompromat was genuine, photographic, sexual in nature and collected long before it might be needed. That is precisely what Epstein appears to have done.” [Id.]

There is no proof as yet that Epstein was a willing Russian agent. But we see just how easily government and business leaders can become victims of the most insidious conspiracies, making it that much more difficult to separate fact from fiction.

And, as Macintyre said:

“No one will be enjoying those revelations more than Putin, the Kremlin’s king of kompromat. Checkmate.” [Id.]

I find it particularly interesting to note that the leaders of such countries as Poland, France and the U.K. are willing — indeed, anxious — to unearth the truth . . . while the man in the Oval Office spends 25 hours a day trying to bury it.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/7/26