Andrew ‘was targeted by Russian spymasters who exploited his long-standing hatred of his brother Charles’, top secret docs reveal

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was unwittingly cultivated by Russian spymasters who exploited his long-standing jealousy and hatred of his brother the King – according to a top secret US intelligence report.

The former prince was targeted without his knowledge by the Kremlin through his close association with Jeffrey Epstein as a way to penetrate the British establishment, it’s claimed.

Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, was arrested last week by police officers at his home on the Sandringham estate amid suggestions he may have leaked market-sensitive information gained through his trade envoy role.

Now the Mail has seen a highly classified US report being used by the US security services that lays bare how Andrew was regarded as a ‘useful idiot’ and the Royal family’s ‘weak link’ by Russian agents from both hostile states.

It’s said that Russian spies were able to exploit Andrew’s view that he would make a better king than his older brother Charles together with his motivation for ‘financial, sexual and personal reward.’

The secret document was produced by an unnamed US security agency and is headed ‘Political Corruption: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’ with the sub heading Designated Russian Union and it’s dated January 15th of this year.

A source said: ‘It says that Russian intelligence developed networks using figures such as Jeffrey Epstein for access to political and business leaders and to control any possible domestic law enforcement actions.

‘It states that ‘Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (AMW) was cultivated by Russian intelligence in order to have a figure close to the British Royal Family.’

The report would be further embarrassment for Andrew if its headline findings were corroborated by any subsequent official investigation.

But regardless of whether that happens, it remains mortifying on a personal level because of what it claims about Andrew’s feelings for his brother the King, on whose discretion he is now wholly dependent for a home and an income.

The report states baldly ‘AMW has a long-standing hatred of his brother Charles, who he sees as weak.

‘AMW detested the attention and adulation Charles received as the future king, feeling he was best suited for the role and superior, in general, to the then Prince of Wales,’ it says.

On the question of why he may have been targeted by Russian spies, our source said: ‘This would facilitate them conducting both intelligence and corruption operations within both the UK and the EU and the wider world.

‘Using AMW as a front provided legitimacy to corruption operations worldwide.

‘AMW was not blackmailed or otherwise coerced into this role – rather he was a willing participant in these schemes due to financial, sexual and personal reward.

‘Russian intelligence used AMW’s sexual proclivities to establish a relationship rapport in order to exploit this mental condition for further gain.’

The revelations came after MPs tore former Prince Andrew’s reputation to shreds in the Commons and were promised that the Government would make available the official papers relating to his appointment as a UK trade envoy in 2001 – but not until the present criminal inquiry is over.

Andrew Lownie, author of the former Duke of York’s biography Entitled and one of his fiercest critics, said: ‘It is now clear that US intelligence agencies believe Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was used by both Russian and Chinese spies to further their influence.’

On the question of how they had managed this without the royal becoming aware, he added: ‘They will seek out the weakness and exploit it, and in Andrew’s case, he’s been their useful idiot.

‘This is how spies work – they find the vulnerabilities and work on them just as they did with the Cambridge spies and their homosexuality.

‘And it’s not just Russian intelligence, it’s Chinese intelligence which has also penetrated the establishment, and our soft underbelly has been the Royal Family – specifically Andrew – because there’s absolutely no oversight or transparency there.’

And Mr Lownie said he believes that there is ‘a lot more coming down the track for the King and the Royal Family’ because of the potential issues of national security being examined.

He added: ‘I think what’s outrageous is that these stories have been running around for years – Sarah Ferguson selling access to Andrew, unexplained large sums of money etc and no-one, whether the Palace, the Government or the police have shown the remotest interest in looking into them until they were exposed in the Epstein files’.

Mr Lownie has previously written on Mail+ that King Charles has been warned ‘for decades’ that the Royals’ name was being abused by Andrew’s ‘dodgy’ business associations.

And the biggest threat was posed by Russia, thanks to Andrew’s frequent forays to former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan, said Mr Lownie, who added: ‘Putin could finish Andrew any time he likes with photos, tales and evidence he no doubt has on Andrew in Russia.’

Andrew’s former home in Sunninghill Park, Berks, was bought by Kazakh billionaire Timur Kulibayev for £15million in 2007, a sum which was £3million over the asking price.

Kulibayev is the son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s then-president and was one of the most influential officials in the central Asian country’s oil and gas industry.

Money laundering expert Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Finance and Security, told the BBC that the deal had ‘blatant red flags’ which should have prompted detailed checks to ensure it was not ‘helping to launder the proceeds of corruption’.

The former prince told the Daily Telegraph in 2009, after criticism of the deal: ‘It’s not my business, the second the price is paid. If that is the offer, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and suggest they have overpaid me.’

Andrew had reportedly been introduced to Kulibayev by Kazakh businesswoman and socialite Goga Ashkenazi, who has two children from an affair with the oligarch.

She later described the prince as a close friend, but now says she has not had any dealings with him for about 15 years.

Andrew and Ashkenazi were photographed in June 2007 attending Ladies Day at Ascot with the Queen. In the same month, contracts were exchanged for the purchase of Sunninghill.

On one official visit to Russia, Andrew was said to be ‘angling to be given a Faberge egg’, former risk management executive Tim Reilly told Mr Lownie.

He recalled: ‘Even they were stunned by his undisguised avarice.’

As the Mail on Sunday revealed this week, a whistleblower told the Palace he had secret financial links to controversial millionaire financier David Rowland – whom Andew, on numerous occasions, alerted to business opportunities arising from his work as trade envoy.

According to Mr Lownie: ‘Those high up in the Establishment have known about Andrew’s alleged misdemeanours for decades.’

And he said it’s likely that the millions of new documents released by the US Department of Justice contain even more material which could tarnish the Royal ‘brand’ because of Andrew’s friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

As police officers sift through evidence seized during searches in Norfolk and Windsor following Andrew’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office, Mr Lownie recalled the catalogue of scandals that have swirled around him during his days as ‘AirMiles Andy’.

He pointed to emails which have emerged suggesting that during his decade as the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment between 2001 and 2011, ‘Andrew alerted his associates to useful, inside information from which they might have been able to profit.’

Mr Lownie added: ‘It is said that he provided his banker friends David Rowland and his son Jonathan with a secret Treasury document that might have helped them purchase a failing Icelandic bank, for example.

‘In the same year, Andrew is believed to have supplied commercially sensitive information to Epstein amid the £45billion Government rescue of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

‘The released documents also suggest he passed on information about Aston Martin, including claims of internal tensions amid a slump in sales and that he disclosed details of confidential briefings he’d received while on trade visits to south-east Asia and Libya.’

But the most damaging information on the former Prince Andrew could well come from the murky depths of the former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan where he frequently travelled.

Mr Lownie says he is in no doubt that Epstein was a Soviet ‘asset’ and Ghislaine Maxwell’s Czech-born father Robert was known to have extensive links behind the former Iron Curtain.

As he wrote this week: ‘In my book, I revealed that Andrew had taken a £3.85million commission for helping a Greek water company secure contracts in Kazakhstan; how he helped to fast-track a banking licence in the Middle East for David Rowland’s Banque Havilland; and how he helped shoe-horn Rowland’s son Jonathan into meetings on a visit to China in 2010.’

‘Yet the Palace, police and Establishment as a whole continued to look the other way, as they have done from the outset. It is now the best part of two decades since the facts about the King’s younger brother were first laid before the public – and with startling clarity. Yet officialdom did nothing.

‘Why was there neither a police investigation nor a royal inquiry when, in 2010, Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, was filmed by the News of the World selling access to Prince Andrew?

‘Why was there no investigation when it was revealed Andrew had been paid £3million over the asking price for his first marital home, Sunninghill, even though the source of that money was from Kazakhstan, an oil-rich dictatorship, and the possibility of money laundering (with or without his knowledge) was very real?

‘Why did nothing happen in 2022 when, in an unrelated fraud case, the High Court revealed Andrew’s family had received over £1million from a Turkish millionaire for which they could not account: £750,000 to Andrew, £245,000 to Sarah and £10,000 to Princess Eugenie?

‘Why were no questions asked when it emerged in 2019 that Pitch@Palace, a charity hosted in Buckingham Palace bringing entrepreneurs and investors together, had a clause giving Andrew a 2 per cent cut of any investment? Why was Sarah allowed to spend 30 years monetising her royal status for personal commercial gain?

‘The fact is, the royals have known about Andrew’s activities for years. Not only did they turn a blind eye, I believe they abetted it – as did some of the most powerful influences in British society. I suspect that diplomats, civil servants, policeman and former members of staff knew their careers would be curtailed if they tried to speak truth to power.’

Earlier this month he Mail also revealed a growing belief in UK intelligence circles that Epstein himself may have been initially set up by the KGB to run what they called ‘the world’s largest honeytrap operation’.

By procuring women for his network of associates, which grew to included some of the world’s most powerful men, he was providing the greatest ever trove of so-called Kompromoat (potentially damaging material used to ‘turn’ targets into their spies).

Intelligence sources said this would explain how Epstein appeared to enjoy an ultra-wealthy lifestyle out of kilter with his career as a financier, although there is no documentary evidence linking Putin and his spies directly to Epstein’s illicit activities.

But the sources also claim that while US security services ‘monitored’ Epstein’s Russian connections for years, their UK equivalents were hesitant to do this due to Epstein’s connection to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.