The U.S. State Department has no plans to grant the asylum request of a self-described Belarusian “sex-huntress” in exchange for alleged evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
Thai authorities arrested Nastya Rybka with her partner and eight Russians last week for running an illegal sex-training course in the city of Pattaya. Rybka, whose real name is Anastasia Vashukevich, asked the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok for asylum in exchange for video and audio proof of “Russian government crimes.”
“This sounds like a pretty bizarre story,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at a briefing Tuesday when asked if Washington was willing to hear Rybka’s story.
“I’m sure if there is anything of great interest that we need to be aware of […] our Thai officials would inform us,” Nauert said.
Rybka was a key figure in a video investigation released February that claimed to have found a missing link in the Trump campaign’s suspected coordination with Russia.
The video alleged that Russian steel tycoon Oleg Deripaska had liaised between candidate Donald Trump’s ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort and Sergei Prikhodko, Russia’s deputy prime minister, in August 2016.
