In March 2000, the week Vladimir Putin was first elected president of Russia, I was on a tour of the Chechen war zone overseen by the Russian army. The Kremlin was furious and frustrated at the negative news coverage that had followed thousands of civilian deaths. The restrictions on reporters in that phase of the conflict, which had started in the autumn of 1999, had been tightened.
A correspondent’s courage was no longer the only limit on where they travelled. Now you had to have special permission and work under the suspicious, unforgiving glare of the military and accompanying officials.
One stop was a winery, ostensibly chosen to show how the industry was reviving in areas no longer under rebel control. They offered us, foreign reporters, a glass as a Russian photographer raised his camera. I refused the wine. The camera was lowered. The photographer’s face fell.
I suspected then, as now, that the goal was to say we were drinking on the job – and that’s why our critical coverage couldn’t be trusted.
Later, we stopped at a village park that had become a cemetery. The graves seemed real; I had seen similar elsewhere. But it was striking that a woman, apparently a villager, just happened to pass by and say in near-flawless English: “That’s what your beloved Chechens do.”
The last day of our trip was polling day. We were taken into Grozny, Chechnya’s regional capital, which was largely in ruins, to witness voting before Putin’s first election victory. More than a quarter of a century later, he’s still at the summit of Russian power.
I have often remembered that assignment when seeing the photos emerging from the Epstein files. How could prominent, media-savvy people not have been aware of being photographed? Perhaps they had been put at ease by their companions and were no longer mindful of the pictures being taken.
It’s a classic KGB tactic. Techniques may have evolved along with Russian political changes – and more sophisticated technology – but the purpose remains the same: to gather compromising material (kompromat in Russian) that can come in handy later when you need to get a favour from someone, or end their career.
As the Putin era went on, it was a tactic regularly used against liberal journalists. Some ended up unwitting stars of a secretly shot video. They were shown in varying states of undress, and, in some cases, apparently taking drugs, in the company of sex workers.
It was embarrassing, but it served the purpose of suggesting to a Russian audience that coverage critical of Kremlin policy was the work of degenerates, so not to be taken seriously. It was also a warning to troublesome reporters that they were being watched.
Do the Epstein files represent something similar? The Polish government – wary now more than ever of its Russian neighbour’s belligerent leadership – is convinced there is a case to answer. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has spoken of “the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services”. Poland is now investigating.
The Kremlin has dismissed the idea, with Putin’s spokesman dismissively saying, “I would like to joke about such versions, but let’s not waste our time.“
Was Jeffrey Epstein a Russian agent? No conclusive evidence has yet emerged. Certainly, there are similarities in the collection of kompromat he amassed – tactics akin to those Russian spies and secret policemen have used all the way back to the early Soviet era.
Whether or not Epstein was working for Russian intelligence, the files are a win for the Kremlin.
Russia’s biggest opposition figure of the Putin era, the late Alexei Navalny, launched his campaign with the slogan that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party was “swindlers and thieves”. The Epstein files can be used to show a cynical Russian population, weary of corruption at the highest level, that Western elites are no better.
My research on Russia’s post-Soviet history shows a pattern of anger at the West, especially over military interventions, such as the Iraq war. These are seen as hypocritical: regime change to suit Western interests dressed up as humanitarian intervention.
Among those keen to make that point is Putin’s long-serving foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
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“This topic has exposed the real face of what is called the collective West and the deep state, or rather, an alliance that controls the entire West and is seeking to rule the whole world,” Lavrov said, borrowing terms from conspiracy theorists while reflecting the Kremlin’s glee at the scandal’s fallout.
In the case of Lavrov, there may also be some relief that others are in the spotlight. In 2022, it was revealed that the daughter of his alleged mistress owned a £4.4m flat in Kensington, west London, reportedly bought without a mortgage when she was just 21.
Russia’s political elite will continue to enjoy the scandal – and to benefit. Some of the world’s wealthy and powerful might do well to enquire more closely into who their hosts are, who’s taking the pictures at parties, and whose files they will end up in.
James Rodgers is a journalist and author. His most recent book is The Return of Russia (2026)
