Tom Cruise’s ‘new Russian socialite love’ Elsina Khayrova, 36, is an ex-model mother-of-two, daughter of a Putin-ally politician and ‘once hid £1million handbag collection during divorce battle with diamond-dealer oligarch’

Speculation surrounding Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise’s love life has been stoked after he was spotted with Russian socialite Elsina Khayrova.

The Mission: Impossible star, 61, was seen last Saturday canoodling at a party in London’s Mayfair with the 36-year-old – the daughter of a prominent Russian MP and ex-wife of a diamond-trading oligarch.

A source told the Daily Mail Cruise and Khayrova were ‘inseparable, clearly a couple. He seemed to be besotted with her.’ But who is this new love interest?

On her Instagram – which she turned private this morning – the glamorous mother of two posts pictures of herself posing in all the places one might expect a Russian socialite to frequent: Paris, Venice, San Tropez, Monte Carlo, Qatar and California.

But being a British citizen, London appears to be her main stomping ground, with the former model regularly sharing snaps of herself in the capital’s Mayfair district, wearing a variety of elegant evening dresses standing next to expensive cars.

It was in Mayfair that she was spotted with Cruise, one of Hollywood’s biggest names. The pair arrived at a party in Grosvenor Square together, it was said.

She was clad in a strapless black dress with a diamanté bow, and posed for pictures with Avramenko Aliena, a former Miss Europe contestant.

She then hit the dance floor with her acting royalty plus-one. Cruise and Miss Khayrova reportedly left the event together in the early hours.

While she may not be as accustomed to the limelight as Cruise’s past romantic partners – including ex-wives Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes – this is not the first time the Russian beauty has made headlines.

And behind the scenes, she has been having a turbulent time of late.

Khayrova was, until recently, married to Russian tycoon Dmitry Tsvetkov, an international deal mediator and diamond trader.

The pair split last year after more than a decade of marriage when Khayrova asked her husband for a divorce, sparking a bitter process that reached the High Court.

Together, they shared a plethora of properties, including a £22million mansion on Surrey’s Wentworth estate as well as five flats in London worth a total of £18million.

They also held properties in both Dubai and Cyprus worth £2million alongside their extensive luxury car, jewellery and art collections worth millions of pounds.

The High Court heard last year that their collection included Ferrari and Bentley ‘supercars’, ‘expensive Cartier jewellery’ and works by artists Renoir and Marc Chagall, according to The Times.

It is not clear where Khayrova lives now, but it is thought to be in London. Based on an interview given by Tsvetkov to the Daily Telegraph in January, it is thought that he lives in the Surrey mansion, suggesting he kept the house in the split.

Their acrimonious divorce hit the headlines in the summer after Khayrova was accused of hiding substantial assets from her ex-husband.

As part of their assets, Khayrova was accused of failing to include her large handbag collection of more than 150 bags worth nearly £1 million. 

During a hearing in February this year, she was accused of lying, saying she only owned about 20 handbags and reiterated that claim to the court in May 2023. 

According to the judge, she ‘downplayed the bags’, saying it would be disproportionate to even have them valued.

Mr Justice Peel said in his judgement handed down at the High Court that the case had been ‘infected by [Khayrova’s] dishonesty from start to finish’. He added that she ‘led the court on a merry dance about handbags’ by lying about the assets.

Another dispute stemmed from the couple’s valuable jewellery collection.

The pair owned investment grade diamonds and a Patek Philippe watch, which were kept in a safe deposit box at Harrods.

The key to the box was held by Tsvetkov, but the high court heard how Khayrova convinced staff at the store that the keys were lost and got a set for herself without telling her husband and later omitted the items from evidence.

The court was also told how Tsvetkov, an entrepreneur who first came to the UK in 2004 and was granted a British passport and indefinite leave to remain five years later, hasn’t been able to make ‘meaningful sums of money’ since June 2022.

This was due to Khayrova blocking his access to the family bank accounts, the court heard. But Mr Justice Peel said he was optimistic that ‘clever, resourceful and well-connected’ Tsvetkov would soon be able to start trading again.

Khayrova, on the other hand, did not work during the marriage and tried setting up a coffee business during the divorce proceedings which failed.

‘There is no real indication that her next business proposition, a private members’ beauty club, is likely to be financially fruitful,’ the judge said.

Mr Justice Peel ruled that the ‘greater responsibility for this expensive litigation’ fell to Khayrova, who was ordered to pay half of her husband’s £1,761,488 legal bill.

She was also seen in court in 2022 when she was ordered to pay £117,000 that she owed to the company who installed fountains in her Surrey home. 

This dispute over the fountains offered more insight into the life she shared with her former husband Tsvetkov.

GSL Installations Ltd said Khayrova owed them nearly £250,000 for the garden installations at the couple’s 26,000sq ft, 10-bed Surrey mansion.

GSL, based in Mayfair, said the invoice for the fountains had been approved by Tsvetkov and confirmed by Khayrova’s property manager.

Khayrova paid two invoices totalling more than £39,000, but the installation company said in court that the couple still owed over £240,000.

In court, the lawyer representing the company said: ‘The real dispute seems to be between the defendant and her husband. They are in the process of getting divorced’ and that the former model had said her husband was not paying the bills.

Barrister Alastair Panton argued that Khayrova had access to the couple’s bank accounts and had £25million in property registered in her sole name.

The socialite’s defence was that her estranged husband – believed to be worth £200million – was responsible for payments and on the ‘Kremlin’s most-wanted list’. 

Khayrova’s lawyer Montclare Campbell requested the case brought by GSL be halted to give her ‘breathing space’, and said she was suffering mental health issues.

This was rejected by the judge, and ultimately she was ordered to pay £117,000.

As for her ex-husband, in an interview with The Telegraph in January, Tsvetkov insisted he should not be counted among the Russian ‘Oligarch’ class.

Instead, he said, he is more of a ‘Tycoon’.

He arrived in the UK under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme in November 2004, and in 2009 was given indefinite leave to remain, and in 2010 a British passport.

While he started off as a diamond seller, he told the British newspaper that he is now more an intermediary in business dealings across the world.

And while many wealthy Russians were sanctioned in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he was not on the list. He said that he had not been to Russia since 2017 and there would be no reason to sanction him.

While any sanctions would be ‘unpleasant,’ he told the publication, the divorce he was undergoing at the time from Khayrova was ‘worse than any sanctions possible’.

The Telegraph reported Tsvetkov as having heightened security at his Surrey mansion. He said he survived three Mafia assassination attempts in Russia that were ‘only business’, and that he was still a target in the UK.

As for her family, Khayrova is the daughter of Russian politician Rinat Khayrov. 

He worked in the country’s ministry of defence before being elected to parliament in 2011, where he served until 2021, and he is thought to earn £105,000-a-year as a member of president Putin’s United Russia party.

While seen very much as a Putin ally, he is not thought to be in the Russian president’s inner circle. 

Tom Cruise, meanwhile, has not been publicly linked to anyone since his divorce from his third wife, Katie Holmes, 15 years ago.

Though tight-lipped about his love-life, the American scientologist is always keen to discuss his fondness for Britain – where, he believes, ‘everyone is so pleasant’.