Russia’s war hawk foreign minister Sergei Lavrov went on an official trip to Japan in the company of his ‘mistress’ and a Russian ‘escort’ famed for her nude pictures, a bombshell exposé has claimed.
Vladimir Putin‘s attack dog was pictured alongside long-term mistress Svetlana Polyakova and Ekaterina Lobanova, an X-rated model who goes by the name ‘Lizzy Sex Relax’ on one adult site, on the 2018 government trip.
Lobanova was with the billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a personal friend of the 71-year-old foreign minister, who she is pictured next to outside the Tokyo restaurant.
Lavrov took the official trip in the weeks following Russia’s poisoning of Sergei Skripal as he pleaded with Japan to help locate the spy, according to the new investigation by The Insider and New Lines.
Also seen in the photo is to the former owner of a strip club chain turned oil executive Gennady Rovner, Angelo Koo, a Taiwanese businessman even though Russia has no formal relations with the nation, and Lavrov’s official interpreter.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (back, third from right) is pictured next to his alleged mistress Svetlana Polyakova (third from left), an ‘escort’ Ekaterina Lobanova (second right), oligarch Oleg Deripaska (back right) and strip club owner Gennady Rovner (bottom middle) on a 2018 Kremlin trip to Japan. Angelo Koo (second back left) and his official translator (back left) are also seen in the picture
Lobanova is an X-rated model who goes by the name ‘Lizzy Sex Relax’ on one adult site, on the 2018 government trip
The alleged escort (pictured) was at the time partnering sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska
Facial recognition software confirmed that Lobanova ‘and the person in the photo with Lavrov and Deripaska are one and the same person’, said the report.
On one adult site, ‘Lizzy Sex Relax’ has amassed 183,000 ‘likes’.
The newly-emerged photo bolsters jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny’s claim that Lavrov regularly took ‘mistress’ Polyakova on official Kremlin trips, often at the expense of his billionaire friend Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the West.
The actress and restaurateur has held a position in the Russian Foreign Ministry since 2014 and has a ‘long-standing and very close’ relationship with Lavrov.
She accompanies Lavrov on every foreign trip and has been on an official aircraft more than 60 times, according to the FBK, the anti-corruption foundation run by Navalny.
Property records show that she and her family own real estate in Russia and Great Britain worth about 1 billion rubles.
Polyakova’s daughter Polina Kovaleva – seen as Lavrov’s stepdaughter – was recently sanctioned by Britain over a £4.4million luxury apartment in London which she bought at the age of 21.
Polyakova is often known as Svetlana Lavrova, even though the foreign minister’s wife is Maria Lavrova.
Svetlana Polyakova, 51, has allegedly been in a relationship with Lavrov since the early 2000s and is said to be his unofficial wife
Little is known about Sergei Lavrov’s ‘official’ wife Maria (left) and daughter Ekaterina (centre)
She is a foreign ministry employee but is described as ‘no ordinary bureaucrat’.
An earlier investigation by the team of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny disclosed the close ties between Lavrov and tycoon Deripaska.
‘The photo of Lavrov and Deripaska confirms the Navalny team’s investigation, which found that the Russian Foreign Minister and his mistress Svetlana Polyakova, along with her mother and daughter, have been flying on Deripaska’s planes, sailing on his yachts and living in his homes since at least 2014,’ stated the new report.
‘In particular, Lavrov’s relatives have used the oligarch’s planes to fly to Montenegro, Austria, Germany, Norway, and other countries.
‘Polina, the foreign minister’s stepdaughter, has repeatedly posted photos from homes owned by Deripaska.
Imperial College graduate Polina Kovaleva, a jet-setting 26-year-old who has enjoyed exotic holidays and a first-class education in Britain, was identified as the daughter of the Russian Foreign Secretary’s lover by allies of Alexei Navalny
Polina lives in a stunning £4million home in Kensington, west London, allegedly bought ‘in cash’ when she was 21
‘For example, she vacationed at the oligarch’s villa in Montenegro and celebrated her 22nd birthday at his villa in Sardinia.
‘At the same time, Polina calls Deripaska’s real estate her ‘second home’.’
She is said to enjoy a lavish lifestyle described as like a ‘non-stop holiday’.
Deripaska owns the £50million Knightsbridge mansion which was taken over by squatters shortly after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin-linked businessman has a multimillion-pound property portfolio in the UK which includes the house at 5 Belgrave Square, according to a 2007 High Court judgment.
Deripaskal, a former business partner of Roman Abramovich, has intimate links with the British establishment, with Peter Mandelson and George Osborne previously visiting his £80million superyacht in Corfu.
The oligarch, who is a grandson by marriage to the late leader of the Soviet Union Boris Yeltsin, has been sanctioned by the US since 2018 over alleged links to the Russian government, including allegations of cyber-attacks and election meddling.
He was also added to the British sanctions list following the invasion.
In a bitter £650million legal battle at the High Court in 2012, he was alleged to have ties to brutal organised crime gangs which emerged after the collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union.
He vehemently denied the allegations – revealed in legal papers filed as part of the case – and counter-claimed that he was the victim of an ‘old-fashioned protection racket’ run by the Mafia-style gangs.
Deripaska, who was once Russia’s richest man, was sanctioned by the British government in March
He owns the £50million Knightsbridge mansion which was taken over by squatters shortly after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
An intriguing web of connections links Deripaska – an energy and aluminium mogul with almost £3billion – both to Lavrov and his boss Putin, but also to Paul Manafort, chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign staff and a lobbyist for the toppled government of pro-Russian Ukrainian former president Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort was convicted in the US in 2018 of tax evasion, bank fraud, failure to disclose a hidden account at a foreign bank and conspiracy with foreign authorities.
He was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, but pardoned by Trump in December 2020.
Lavrov is sanctioned by Britain and the EU and is seen as an apologist for Putin’s bloody invasion.
The OCCRP report last year stated: ‘Polyakova’s daughter Polina, 26, studied at the Imperial College Business School in London.’
She has been called Lavrov’s ‘stepdaughter’.
‘She owns a company in the British capital, PPK Investments Ltd, which is registered at a house in Kensington, one of the city’s most expensive districts,’ said the report.
‘The company’s principal activity is buying and selling real estate.
‘In 2016, Polina leased an apartment in the same building for 999 years, a common form of indirect real estate ownership in the United Kingdom.
‘She paid £4.4 million ($6.2 million) for the lease.
‘At the time, she was just 21-years-old.’
