Putin's 'sexy' weapon to silence critics

This one is straight out of James Bond film From Russia with Love, in which the Soviet lay 'honey trap' on the super spy, using a sexy seductress.

A woman known as 'Katya' has been luring Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's critics into having sex with her and making their videos.

Her latest victim is satirist Viktor Shenderovich, whose sex tape has surfaced on the net.

Shenderovich, who is a married man, writes for a popular TV programme that uses clowns to mock Prime Minister Putin and his associates.

He revealed that 'Katya', a woman in 20s, pretending to be a journalist lured him to a Moscow apartment.

'She made it clear that she was interested in me as a man. I should have realised this was some sort of danger sign,' the New York Post quoted him as saying.

Also, videos of two extremist dissidents -- Eduard Limonov and Alexander Potkin -- having sex with 'Katya' have emerged.

Potkin, 33, who is married said: 'Now you see that there are no guarantees of having your private life protected.'

Now, more anti-Putin front men, such as Yury Shevchuk, from a popular Russian rock group, DDT, and Ilya Yashin, a leader of the Solidarity opposition group, fear their videos will also surface.

Yashin claims that he enjoyed a romp with Katya in 2008 after meeting her through a Russian social network. She apparently invited him for a threesome with her female roommate, a model named Nastya, using sex toys and handcuffs.

However, Yashin said he left the apartment when she offered him cocaine. He said he asked her if he was being taped but she denied it.

He said: 'The only thing I can be blamed for in this provocation is, I had sex with two girls.'

Meanwhile, Shenderovich joked that Putin's security services discriminated in its treatment of him and Yashin.

He wrote: 'This means young oppositionists get two free girls and a portion of cocaine, while 50-year-olds like us only get one and no toys.'

However, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has dismissed Shenderovich's allegations.

He said:  'We'd like it if he faced his problems alone.'