Posted by The Russian bridge player who Bill Gates has apologised for having an affair with was once pictured with infamous Kremlin spy Anna Chapman.
The Microsoft billionaire admitted this week that he had affairs with two Russian women following Epstein file revelations.
One of the women was professional bridge player Mila Antonova.
A Daily Mail investigation revealed a photograph of Antonova walking in New York with Chapman, the Russian intelligence operative once nicknamed ‘Agent 90-60-90’ because of her body measurements.
While there is no evidence of any wrong-doing on Antonova’s part, it seems to be a connection which raises serious questions for Gates.
A document uncovered in the Epstein files by the Daily Mail shows Epstein emailed an acquaintance – whose identity is redacted – in 2010 asking: ‘did you know Anna Chapman the spy?’ Gates’s fling with Antonova began in 2009.
Emails reviewed by the Daily Mail showed Epstein referencing the affair in correspondence, raising further questions about how much he knew about Gates’s private life.
The exchange has fuelled further speculation about how closely Epstein was following developments surrounding Chapman and those in her orbit.
A photograph showing Bill Gates’s Russian lover with a notorious Kremlin spy has resurfaced after the billionaire admitted to an affair. Pictured: L-R Anna Chapman and Mila Antonova
Chapman was arrested in June 2010 alongside a network of so-called ‘illegals’ accused of living under deep cover in the United States on behalf of Moscow
Gates met Antonova (R) at a bridge tournament in 2009, four years before she is said to have met Epstein
n the photo of Antonova and Chapman, the two young women stride along a New York street, barely breaking step to flash smiles at the camera.
One of them is slightly out of focus, but her face – and the face of her friend – is unmistakable.
The strawberry blonde on the right is Antonova – the flame-haired woman at her side is Chapman, the notorious Moscow spy later deported in a Cold War-style prisoner swap.
Chapman shot to fame after she was unmasked by the FBI as a Russian agent while living in New York, married to her British husband who was oblivious to her secret double life.
After the prisoner swap, she went on to earn a fortune as a celebrity in Russia.
While there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on Antonova’s part, the connection raised serious questions about whether Gates had any knowledge of her apparent links to the Russian intelligence operative, the daughter of a former KGB officer.
In response to a previous investigation, Gates’s spokeswoman acknowledged that Epstein had ‘tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship’ in an attempt to pressure the Microsoft co-founder.
Registered sex offender Epstein had sought to recruit Gates as an ‘anchor donor’ to a multi-billion-dollar charitable fund he planned to establish, a project that ultimately never materialised.
The pair met more than half a dozen times, and Gates once flew on Epstein’s private jet. He has since said he regrets meeting the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Gates’s spokeswoman has insisted any meetings were ‘solely for philanthropic purposes’. Gates ultimately declined to join Epstein’s charitable fund, and the project did not go ahead.
Even so, the question remains: if Epstein knew about the alleged affair – and later made sure Gates knew that he knew – did he also know about Antonova’s apparent links to Chapman?
Certainly, a relationship between Gates, one of the most influential businessmen on the planet, and a woman who appears to have connections to a Kremlin intelligence agent is troubling.
Chapman, now believed to be aged around 44, was among a ring of Russian spies who all carried out long-term, deep-cover assignments across the US.
She moved to New York in 2009 from the UK, where she had been issued with a UK passport after marrying a British man.
Anna Chapman, who was deported from the US on charges of espionage, displays a creation by Russian designers Shiyan & Rudkovskaya during a Fashion Week in Moscow
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