The Kremlin’s bigots, as shown by independent Russian media, indulge in pedophilia and debauchery and are every bit as bad as Epstein’s cronies. But that doesn’t stop Putin’s propaganda from spreading about the Epstein case, which is used as justification for all-out war against a “satanic” and “perverse” West, including of course Ukraine. Revelations about the American pedophile’s networks are being used by Russian ideologues such as Alexander Dugin to legitimize apocalyptic rhetoric.
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by Françoise Thom in Desk Russia — Paris, 3 March, 2026 —[*]
It seems that Putin’s Faustian luck never fails him. The Epstein affair comes at just the right time, as it reinforces one of the leitmotifs of Kremlin propaganda: the corruption of decadent “globalist” elites. Russian pundits revel in watching the pins fall one after the other. Seeing the British monarchy wobbling on its pedestal is a triumph for Russia over its age-old enemy. Seeing Keir Starmer, one of Ukraine’s most staunch supporters, threatened with resignation, tarnished by Epstein’s links to Peter Mandelson, whom he appointed as ambassador to the U.S., is a dream come true. The Clintons dragged through the mud, what a sweet revenge for Putin, who never forgave Hillary for her support for the Russian protesters in 2011-2012. The Russian press is full of catchy headlines such as: “Pedophilia, cannibalism. Epstein was not just a pimp; he embodied the secret desires of the Western elites.” The tireless Elena Karaieva, who specializes in dumping truckloads of filth on France, responds to the call: “Pedophilia in France is not something unusual or an absolute disgrace, but something extremely common.” In short, the Epstein scandal represents “a compelling reason for a total anti-elite revolution in the United States and other countries,” pontificates Dugin, who warns against downplaying this criminal enterprise.
The Kremlin’s festival of bigots
Needless to say, TV propagandist Vladimir Soloviev and his ilk did not let this golden opportunity pass them by. Here are a few samples of their ecstatic trance: “Those who preached morality to us […] were in fact closely linked to the organizer of a global pedophile network. Those who most loudly advocated a rules-based order recognized no rules for themselves.” In short, Soloviev sums up: “These people who preached morality to us have sunk to the lowest depths of repugnant Satanism.” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, joins the chorus: “Individuals in this cesspool have been recruited to key positions within the Western community itself […]. For many years, [Western elites] chose the worst of the worst.” What a contrast with Russia, which “is now restoring the primacy of traditional values and emphasizing the selection of the best of the best.” And, of course, the liberal elites had no other idea than to plunder Ukraine, RIA Novosti points out: “Let’s not forget the note Epstein sent to Ariane de Rothschild in 2014, in which he explained that ‘a coup in Ukraine would offer many opportunities’. Clearly, the global elites were looking to plunder Ukraine, and these ‘opportunities’ were literally right before their eyes.”
As a result, the war in Ukraine is seen as justified, including Russia’s abduction of children: it turns out that “Putin did not kidnap children in Ukraine, but rather evacuated them to protect them from child trafficking for sexual exploitation.” “The Epstein papers reveal how Western elites treat children,” Zakharova accuses. Western pedophiles “are behind the Kiev regime. They are the ones who give the Kiev regime enormous resources to exterminate children and civilians; they finance those who, at Zelensky’s instigation, authorized ‘Black transplantology’ in Ukraine in 2022.” In Kremlin propaganda, nothing is lost. It’s time to dig up the theme of Ukrainians as child killers and traffickers of minors. It is suggested that Zelensky “may also have been involved in human trafficking.” According to Rossiya 24, Western celebrities may be complicit in the trafficking of Ukrainian minors: “How many times has Angelina Jolie, for example, visited Ukraine? After all, [her visits] were also related to issues concerning children. She was also in contact with Epstein. She invited him to movie premieres in 2014 and 2017.” Ukrainian pedophiles allegedly sell children online under the code name ‘pizza.’
Kremlin sycophants see the Epstein case as further proof of their Führer’s prophetic genius. Kirill Dmitriev, the director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and Maria Zakharova dug up an interview given by Vladimir Putin on March 13, 2024: “The ‘golden billion’1 have, in fact, lived for five hundred years as parasites at the expense of other peoples. They have plundered the peoples of Africa, exploited Latin America, exploited the countries of Asia, and of course, no one has forgotten this. […] Among Western elites, there is a very strong desire to freeze the existing—unfair—state of affairs in international relations. For centuries, they have been accustomed to feasting on human flesh and lining their pockets with money. But they must understand that the vampire ball is coming to an end.” Ten days later, on March 23, 2024, the actress Roseanne Barr claimed in an interview with Tucker Carlson that liberals, like vampires, eat babies and love to feast on human flesh. Once again, the osmosis between Kremlin propaganda and the ramblings of Trump supporters is astounding. Excerpts from this interview with Roseanne Barr were shown on February 8, 2026, on Russian television by Soloviev.
The Kremlin’s hypocrites have a field day denouncing the complicity of Western authorities in Epstein’s actions. “All of this [human trafficking] is happening at the very heart of the Western world. As you understand, it was impossible for this to have escaped the authorities’ attention,” Zakharova insists. But they are careful not to implicate Trump. On the contrary, they insist, Trump was fighting against this rot. The very official Fyodor Lukyanov gives the propagandists their marching orders: “The Epstein files dealt a severe blow to the American elites of the time. They revealed the close and lasting ties that united the Western elite and, at their center, a man who was absolutely unacceptable in criminal and moral terms. The wildest fantasies of conspiracy theorists were suddenly confirmed.” However, Trump, who is part of these elites, is believed to stand up against this phenomenon, surprisingly: “I don’t rule out that he is the least affected by it.”
But nothing is perfect: unfortunately “there is no information available on the Soros family, father and son, except for George’s contact details. This is strange, because his successor, Alexander, is a regular guest at all kinds of receptions,” RIA regrets. “Malicious rumors are circulating that Barack Obama was really pulling the strings during Joe Biden’s presidency. However, there is nothing compromising about the Bidens, neither Joe Biden’s father nor the controversial Hunter Biden. This is all the more striking when we think of the revelations that have been made about Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and Woody Allen.” Russian pundits worry that Obama is coming out of this shipwreck of the American political class so well: “Democratic supporters explain that Obama is a pure, honest, and virtuous man. We believe them, of course, but it is impossible not to notice that the publication of the Epstein files by this editorial team is extremely advantageous for this angel of virtue and can be used in his political campaign. […] Indeed, the main American political leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, are irretrievably compromised. American voters were already disillusioned with both parties, and now this nightmare is hitting them hard. Obama then arrives, a knight in shining armor, launches a new party, and presents himself as the savior of the stunned American people.” Once again, we see how closely the Russian narrative aligns with the mood of President Trump, who, at around the same time, posted portraits of Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys.
The Epstein files are therefore sometimes disappointing for Moscow. Unfortunately for them, Emmanuel Macron, their bête noire, did not meet Epstein. Never mind! The Kremlin mounted a disinformation campaign aimed at making people believe that Macron “was a frequent guest at Jeffrey Epstein’s residence in Paris,” based on a fake article in the conspiracy-theory media outlet France Soir.
The propagandists are careful not to mention Russia’s essential role in supplying the pedophile with young girls. Nothing is said about the swarm of young Russian beauties who surrounded Epstein, such as Masha Drokova, the former leader of Putin’s Youth Movement, who became his collaborator in 2017 and gave him useful advice on how to “whitewash” his reputation, notably by proposing to finance a documentary about his life and creating an ‘Epstein Prize’ awarded to promising young scientists and a fund to help women victims of sexual harassment. Only Deputy Vitaly Milonov acknowledged that all Russian modeling agencies, under the guise of training, are involved in selecting and delivering young girls to escort services or brothels in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries.
Nor was there any mention of Epstein’s numerous connections with individuals close to the Kremlin, such as Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the UN. Kirill Dmitriev makes no secret of his indignation at seeing Russia implicated in the affair by Westerners: ”Look at the journalists, experts, politicians, and media personalities of the deep state desperately trying to save the corrupt liberal cabal by spreading a false narrative linking Epstein to Russia,” he vents on X. Curiously, the publication Vzgliad goes even further in its denial, refusing to implicate Western intelligence services in the Epstein affair: “We dare to assert that Jeffrey Epstein worked for no one but himself. Epstein’s very personality contradicted all the criteria for selecting intelligence agents. Jeffrey Epstein was a crook, a con artist, and a pedophile, and such people are viewed with great and understandable suspicion within the intelligence services […]. This nightmarish story is the work of a lone adventurer who managed to subject the sins of others to his perverted conscience. There was no political or intellectual dimension to it.”
The straw and the beam
A report by Il’ia Davliatchin on the Khodorkovski-Live channel highlights the hypocrisy of the self-righteous talking heads who revel in the Epstein affair in the Russian media. This report shows that the St. Petersburg Economic Forum is every bit as bad as Epstein’s island. Pimp networks recruit young women from all over Russia. The late Yevgeny Prigozhin was not only the mastermind of these festivities, he was also responsible for providing the guests with pretty girls. Like Epstein, he himself had a penchant for Lolitas, convinced that their company would rejuvenate him. Davliatchin claims that if the Russian Ministry of Justice published the names of all those who attended these wild parties in Russia, the list would include dozens of billionaires, financiers, politicians, and directors of state-owned companies. “In Russia, the exploitation of women is no less widespread than in the United States,” notes journalist Maria Volokh, who has investigated the prostitution market in Russia. There is an entire network specializing in the prostitution of schoolgirls. Journalist Renat Davletgildeev recalls that Vladimir Zhirinovsky was always surrounded by young men. According to him, it was possible to order conscripts from the prestigious Dzerzhinsky Division for a night via a Telegram chat. The clients were often members of parliament. Davletgildeev denounces the prudishness displayed in relation to the Epstein case: “In Russia, those with even a modicum of power engage in practices far more perverse than those described on Epstein’s island, whether they be Duma deputies or gutter propaganda masters: little girls, little boys, everything goes. These people talk about ‘traditional values’ all the time, yet they use prostitutes who are of school age, and all this is accepted as part of the natural order of things.” Davletgildeev recalls the precedent of the Republic of Salo: an elite that feels doomed indulges in unbridled debauchery—and that is what is happening in Russia today.
The crystallization of a state ideology at war
The study of Russian reactions to the Epstein affair reveals the tensions that divide the elites close to the Kremlin, particularly with regard to a possible agreement to end the war in Ukraine. We discern discordant notes in the chorus of propaganda. These discordant notes betray deep divisions rooted in the great ideological clashes of the Yeltsin years.
According to political scientist Andrei Yakovlev, the Kremlin is working on the ideology of the future Russia, a closed Russia, in complete digital isolation, cut off from the outside world, based on the North Korean model. While Karaganov advocates a form of ‘spiritual collectivism’—in the name of which individual freedoms must be sacrificed—a think tank called ‘Third Rome’ (sic), created in December 2024, theorizes about the decline of the West and the irresistible rise of the BRIC nations. The think tank prophesies the end of the market economy, supplanted by platforms that choose the customer and the service provider. Andrei Yakovlev asserts that within the Russian elite, in addition to the clan of government technocrats and the clan of the president’s friends, a third group is forming, the mobilization party, around Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov. The latter has won the president’s favor, even though he is not part of his St. Petersburg clan, because he sincerely considers Putin to be the savior of Russia. Belousov is a staunch interventionist and a fervent Orthodox believer who has always viewed the West as an adversary. As early as the early 2000s, he recommended developing the economy under state supervision in preparation for a future confrontation with the West. Belousov is ambitious, honest, and has strong convictions. He vigorously promoted the nationalization process in 2025, which benefited Sergei Chemezov, head of Rostec, and Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister in charge of the defense and space industries. He has succeeded in bringing order to the military-industrial complex and is not unpopular in the army compared with his predecessor Sergei Shoigu. He can also rely on the support of army counterintelligence leaders and FSB officers. He recently had a conflict with Sergei Kirienko, the head of the presidential administration, over the selection of special military operation veterans to fill the quota allocated to veterans in the future Duma (100 deputies). Kirienko had chosen his candidates, apparatchiks who had done a bogus internship on the front lines; Belousov rejected them and opposed them with his own candidates, who were genuine veterans.
The apotheosis of Dugin’s gnosis
This mobilization party is in search of an ideology. It seems that the Epstein affair has allowed Dugin to reposition himself as the visionary inspiration for a war to the death with the West. An article by Dugin headlined “The West as a Satanic Pedophile Organization” sets out a strict interpretation of the Epstein affair, in line with the underlying dogma toward which Putin’s new-look ideology is tending. Dugin is indignant that the Russian media is not giving sufficient coverage to the revelations about the Epstein scandal. For it “involves a shadowy network of maniacs, murderers, rapists, spies, and degenerates who make up the extremely influential circles that have established control not only over the United States, but also over the global elites.” Unlike Dmitriev and his ilk, Dugin does not exonerate Trump. On the contrary, he dwells on how the U.S. president tried to cover up the scandal, “which caused a split within MAGA, and that is what marked the beginning of Trump’s downfall.” We must face facts, writes Dugin: “Not only Trump, but also Elon Musk, as well as many members of the Republican Party, and even members of European royal families, were part of this system. The entire Western elite is now discredited. Epstein acted as a kind of ‘human resources department’ for global government. Candidates for world power were subjected to specific rituals and crimes, including sexual abuse of minors, murder, and cannibalism, which were filmed to ensure subsequent control.”
Dugin dwells at length on Epstein’s alleged links to Mossad: “The fact that documents discrediting Trump appeared on his own agency’s website is widely seen as a Mossad ploy to push Trump into a direct attack on Iran, something he had so far refused to do.”
The verdict is final: “The Western world has collapsed. No Western political leader, whether American or European, enjoys any moral authority. It’s coming out: virtually the entire Global West has been exposed as a pedophile and satanic organization. Any claim to leadership is now null and void. Anyone who enters into an agreement with a Western politician needs to understand that they may find themselves alongside a raving madman and a murderer. That is what the West is. Consequently, either humanity destroys this system, this monstrous totalitarian sect, or the West destroys humanity, turning the entire planet into a kind of Epstein Island.” In the face of such atrocious crimes, a Nuremberg for the West must be organized, Dugin concludes, but for that to happen, “the human race must defeat the collective West.”
Dugin’s position reveals the existence of a vehement opposition to a deal with Trump. According to Dugin, “this old man, involved in [the Epstein network], constantly lies and commits acts of gratuitous aggression against states. Is it possible to negotiate seriously with such an individual? Can he be trusted? His words no longer have any meaning.” And a jab at Dmitriev: “In my opinion, any form of negotiation with individuals on the ‘Epstein list’ or simply sitting at the same table is simply immoral.” Dugin is not alone in this view: according to Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov, it is important for Russia to understand that “it is precisely with these people that we are being asked to sit down at the negotiating table.” Dugin concludes: “If, given the moral state of their elites, we cannot have any guarantees with the West, then total mobilization of society is necessary.”
Thus, for Dugin, the Epstein affair reshuffles the deck: “We tried not to irritate Trump, given his conflicts with other elites, but now, in light of these files, one thing is clear: these people cannot be on our side.” Thus, “the presence of a truly satanic elite in the West, now revealed in broad daylight, radically changes our situation. We thought we could negotiate with some, persuade others, and use force against still others. But the current revelations prove that this approach is ineffective. Totally different methods are needed to deal with a satanic civilization.” Epstein’s enterprise “is the living embodiment of the prophecies transmitted by Orthodox culture concerning the kingdom of the Antichrist.” Dugin signals the final confrontation with Satan unleashed: “The entire axis of resistance to the civilization of the Antichrist rests on our president, our people, our army, and our society.” The war against Ukraine is turned into the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, with Russia playing the role of the archangel Gabriel in this ultimate battle marking the end of time.The Russian media not only obscures Epstein’s multiple relationships with Kremlin insiders, but also camouflages under the strident denunciation of the sexual perversions of Epstein and his accomplices the deep ideological convergence that brings Western oligarchs close to their Russian counterparts and to Dugin’s doctrine itself. Epstein rejoices in the destruction of the liberal international order, as much as Russian oligarchs, as evidenced by an email exchange with Peter Thiel on June 26, 2006, after the Brexit vote. Epstein wrote to Peter Thiel: “Brexit: this is just the beginning.” “What?” asks Peter Thiel. Epstein replies: “Back to tribalism. Obstacle to globalization […]. Finding things that are falling apart is much easier than finding the next good deal.” Taking advantage of chaos to make money: this was the only motto of the ‘new Russians’ as they grew rich on the ruins of the communist world. The American oligarchs joined them on this ground and supported Donald Trump, because they saw him as a fantastic amplifier of the chaos sown by Russia. The ideological accompaniment to this convergence is the apocalyptic millenarian narrative promoted by Dugin and his supporters, who see the existing world as so deeply infused with evil that only a cosmic conflagration can purify it. We are facing a modern gnosis: evil is not the transgression of a divine commandment, but the normal state of a being imprisoned in an intrinsically evil matter. In Putin’s propaganda, the portrayal of humanity entrapped by the powers of darkness is the flip side of the shift to total war. The only justification for the destruction of the existing world is the affirmation of its satanic essence. Hence the desire to amplify the Epstein affair to infinity, as Dugin does.
Françoise Thom
[*] Reprinted with kind permission of Françoise Thom & Desk Russia.
Footnotes
[1] Editor’s note: A conspiracy theory term widely used in Russia to refer to the global elites (mainly Western) who seek to amass wealth among the world’s richest billion people and destroy the rest of humanity.
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