Trump Jr. Hunted in Mongolia With Kremlin-Linked Oligarch, FT Reports

Donald Trump Jr., son of US President Donald Trump, went on a hunting trip to Mongolia in late August, where he may have spent several days in a camp with Kremlin-linked oligarch Umar Kremlev, the Financial Times has found, according to European Pravda.

The newspaper reconstructed the trip from the accounts of local guides and officials, flight data, social media posts and public documents. It says the meeting took place in late August: Kremlev flew to the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar on a charter plane from Kazakhstan and then travelled to Trump Jr.'s hunting camp in the west of the country.

A sanctioned business partner

Russian businessman Artur Martirosov, a partner of the venture fund Voskhod who is under US sanctions, travelled with Kremlev. According to the FT, Trump Jr. and Kremlev spent two days together, after which the Russian returned to Ulaanbaatar. One local participant said the two men were careful to avoid being photographed together at the camp.

"A personal friendship"

A spokesman for Trump Jr. said the men have a personal friendship based on a shared love of hunting, fishing and the outdoors, and that a mutual acquaintance from the hunting community introduced them. "Don made it clear that with Umar he has a personal friendly relationship, not a business one. Nobody should be surprised that they went hunting together earlier this year," the spokesman said. He said there are no business relations between them.

Counterintelligence experts, however, warn about contacts between members of the US president's family and Russian figures. More in our Politics section.