New Navalny investigation sheds light on the role of FSB-staged “honey traps” targeting politicians, oligarchs, and diplomats in Putin’s career.

Russia’s security services and law-enforcement agencies have been using sex workers for political and economic gains for a century – that much is no secret. What few realize is that President Vladimir Putin actually owes much of his status to prostitutes.

A new investigation by late Alexei Navalny’s team at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) – a nonprofit banned in Russia – says that sex workers have been systematically co-opted by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to gather compromising material on opposition figures, foreign diplomats, and business elites — a tactic used to consolidate power and ensure loyalty.

A video report that includes photos, documents, and video recordings portrays a man who relied on blackmail and threats to silence or sideline his foes, using secretly filmed sex scenes to his personal advantage.

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However, when it comes to his billionaire friends – some of whom allegedly hire underage escorts – Putin turns a blind eye.

From scandal to strategy

Navalny’s investigation revisits the 1990s scandal involving former Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov, whose career was publicly undermined by video material depicting him in bed with two young women.

According to the FBK, then-KGB officer Vladimir Putin played a role in managing the fallout. The report frames this incident as an early example of how sexual kompromat — or “honey traps” as they are commonly referred to by the siloviki — could be leveraged for political purposes in Russia.

Such operations reportedly continued under Putin’s presidency, with sex workers linked to the FSB tasked with collecting compromising material on opposition politicians, critical journalists, and other individuals deemed unfriendly by the Kremlin.

The footage was usually used to pressure, discredit, or coerce compliance. Those who refused to switch sides could later see their lives and careers destroyed as television stations and newspapers competed in showing unedited obscenities.

The same strategy was employed towards foreign diplomats. The FBK alleges that employees from Western embassies were monitored through honey-trap operations, with video material reportedly used as a potential tool of influence.

The authorities would then publicly lecture about morality and “traditional values.”

By contrast, the numerous reports about high-ranking officials and oligarchs involved in sex services fall on deaf ears. Putin himself, a divorcee, has allegedly fathered at least three children with two women outside wedlock – Alina Kabayeva and Svetlana Krivonogikh.

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The documentary suggests that the entire sex business in Russia today may be under FSB control, in spite of being an outlawed trade. Some sex workers have military ranks – often as commissioned officers – and FSB identification passes.

Salaries from public coffers

But what truly outraged the investigators is that many prostitutes have been hired in publicly-owned corporations, in decision-making roles with astronomic salaries: millions of rubles per month. This means, the FBK argues, they are effectively paid from taxpayer money to satisfy the sexual appetites of the corporate leaderships and political elites.

FBK identified a dozen of young women, with no experience or training for their formal assignments at Gazprom or Rosneft, Russia’s leading energy giants. They shared pictures of themselves in plush offices in social media and bragged about their personal connections with senior managers.

And to add insult to injury, the same women continued advertising their profiles on dating websites and sex chats, regularly updating the fees in line with their “professional” growth.