You're reading: WikiLeaks releases cable about Libyan leader’s ties with Ukrainian nurse

Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi is accompanied on trips by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse, according to a report by the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli published by whistleblower website Wikileaks.

Click here to read the cable, published to the Internet by Wikileaks on Nov. 29, 2010.

In the Sept. 29, 2009 cable, the ambassador, Gene A. Cretz, wrote that Qaddafi “relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, who has been described as a ‘voluptuous blonde.’” She is said to be one of four Ukrainian nurses who travel with the Libyan leader to “cater to [his] health and well-being.”

The cable hints at romantic ties between Qaddafi and Kolotnytska.

“Some embassy contacts have claimed that Qadhafi (sic) and the 38-year-old Kolotnytska have a romantic relationship. While he did not comment on such rumors, a Ukrainian political officer recently confirmed that the Ukrainian nurses ‘travel everywhere with the Leader,’” Cretz wrote.

The cable describes how Qaddafi cannot travel without Kolotnytska, “as she alone ‘knows his routine.’” In one incident detailed in the communication, arrangements were made to ferry the nurse by private jet from Libya to Portugal to meet Qaddafi during a rest-stop on his trip to the U.S.