Newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents reveal 1,056 references to Russia and Vladimir Putin, showing Epstein’s attempts to contact the Russian leader.
Epstein’s Russian Connections
Published on January 30, documents from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein contain 1,056 references to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Moscow was mentioned over 9,500 times, reported United24. The criminal sought direct contact and a meeting with the Russian leader, though he created the impression that his acquaintance with Putin was already a fact. In one 2010 email, he asked a person using the pseudonym Vlad if he would need a visa. “I have a friend (Vladimir) Putin, should I ask him about it?” read the message.
Attempts to Meet Putin
Epstein wrote about potential meetings with Putin in messages, including to former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, whom he considered a good intermediary to reach Putin. Epstein wanted the Kremlin leader to fly to the United States, rejecting the proposal for a meeting in Petersburg. “I told him no. If (Putin) wants to meet, he will have to reserve time and privacy. We’ll see what happens,” Epstein wrote to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In 2014, the American canceled a meeting with Putin after Russia shot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over Donbas. According to Epstein, the meeting was “a bad idea, considering the plane crash.”
Visa Applications
From emails, it appears Epstein made another attempt to contact Putin through Jagland. In 2015, he wrote that he “would still like to meet with Putin and talk about the economy” and assured that he would be very grateful for arranging a meeting. He initiated another attempt in 2018. Jeffrey Epstein traveled to Russia during the 2018 FIFA World Cup and applied for a visa to visit Moscow in April 2019. It is unknown if the meeting with Putin ever took place.
Russian Intelligence Operations
This is not the only Russian thread in Epstein’s files. The American sexual criminal was a key figure in an extensive blackmail operation targeting Russian intelligence agents. British media determined based on conversations with sources from American and allied intelligence agencies that Epstein was used in a classic “honey trap” operation. Agents were lured to intimate meetings with planted women, and the entire encounter was recorded. The recordings were intended for Russian intelligence services.
Publication of Epstein Files
On Friday, January 30, the US Department of Justice published over 3 million pages of documents related to the investigation into crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein. The prosecution did this under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on November 19, 2025. Over 2,000 videos and 180,000 photos were made public. The files were collected from five main sources, including investigations conducted in Florida and New York against Epstein, the New York case against Maxwell, investigations into Epstein’s death, and the Inspector General’s investigation into Epstein’s death. “During the process of preparing for publication, the Department provided reviewers with clear instructions that censorship should be limited to protecting victims and their families,” read the statement. All women in the photos and videos were treated by prosecutors as crime victims.
