Support The Moscow Times!

Rosneft Employs Dozens of Escorts, Team Navalny Says

Artyom Geodakyan / TASS

Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft employs dozens of young women who provide escort services, paying them high salaries from the company budget, late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s team said in an investigation published Thursday.

“Any woman has the right to make her own choices, to earn money and to control her own body as she sees fit. But the line between personal privacy and public accountability is erased the moment that you enter the civil service. And this is exactly what is happening here. The girls we're going to talk about today are paid from the budget of a state-owned company,” Team Navalny wrote.

Team Navalny examined a roster of Rosneft employees, which includes full names, birthdates, salaries and other information, and cross-checked the records with telephone and police databases, escort service websites and social media profiles. 

In total, they found “a couple dozen” young female Rosneft employees who also appear on escort websites or are listed as escorts in leaked databases.

According to Rosneft’s employee register, Anastasia I., 28, works as a chief specialist in the corporate property department and was paid almost 2.5 million rubles ($25,400) in 2024. 

Cellphone records obtained by Team Navalny show her contact information saved under names such as “Escort Yana,” “Beauty 50%Tatar Piter [St. Petersburg]” and “Anastasia, 19 years, 167 [centimeters], weight 52 [kilograms], breast size 4.” She also has a page on an escort website called Skin Market, Team Navalny said.

Alexandra A., 27, is listed as an advisor to Rosneft's business manager who was hired in 2024. Her profile can also be found on an escort website. 

Elizaveta was hired at Rosneft as a secretary at age 21 and worked there for two years. Her phone number was found in escort agency contact lists and she is identified by her physical attributes in leaked phone contacts.

One of the women, Yana, was listed as a sex worker in a leaked police database, Team Navalny said.

Albina Ivanova, the deputy head of the company's business management department, was hired as a 21-year-old in 2016 with a starting salary of over 300,000 rubles ($3,000) per month — about twice as much as more experienced hires at Rosneft, Team Navalny said. According to investigators, she has earned at least 33 million rubles ($335,624) over the past nine years. 

Beyond her salary at Rosneft, she received another 300 million rubles ($3 million) from Independent Oil and Gas Company, a company belonging to CEO Igor Sechin’s associate Eduard Khudainatov where she has been listed as an employee since 2017, Team Navalny said.

Ivanova and Sechin have traveled together on his private jet 58 times in the past nine years, Team Navalny said, citing flight tracking services, public announcements about Sechin’s trips abroad and Ivanova’s own Instagram Stories where she often documents her travels.

Among the possessions shown on Ivanova’s social media posts, investigators counted at least 25 Hermès handbags along with high-end watches, jewelry valued at millions of rubles and luxury foreign cars.

Team Navalny said it declined to publish the women’s last names, passport details and social media accounts for ethical reasons.

Neither Rosneft nor Sechin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, have commented on the allegations.

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter

Our weekly newsletter contains a hand-picked selection of news, features, analysis and more from The Moscow Times. You will receive it in your mailbox every Friday. Never miss the latest news from Russia. Preview
Subscribers agree to the Privacy Policy

A Message from The Moscow Times:

Dear readers,

We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."

These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.

By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.

Once
Monthly
Annual
Continue
paiment methods
Not ready to support today?
Remind me later.

Read more