Sexy Katya snares Putin opponents

She's a perky brunette, a seductive model who invites men into her Moscow apartment for sex. But if you are a member of Russia’s political opposition, you'd better look out.

The mysterious "Katya" is no ordinary girl-next-door but the bait in a honey trap involving hidden cameras and cleverly edited Internet videos that has snared up to six prominent critics of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Katya, identified as Yekaterina Gerasimova, stars in a series of videos that has caused a stir in the Russian blogosphere and prompted speculation that they were masterminded by agents of the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

In a video that surfaced online last week, three well-known Kremlin critics are shown having sex with a girl, all in the same bedroom though at different times.

They are Viktor Shenderovich, a liberal satirist; Eduard Limonov, founder of the banned National Bolshevik Party; and Alexander Belov, former leader of the nationalist Movement Against Illegal Immigration. Shenderovich and Belov, both of whom are married, have confirmed that they were in the video.