Russia's figures in the Mueller probe come out of the cold after the report's release

A group of personalities linked to Russia, trapped in the investigation of a special advocate, began to emerge under the veil of suspicion now that Robert Mueller has handed down his verdict that he does not want to be caught. there was no irrefutable proof of collusion.

For the first time in more than a year, for example, a Maltese scholar who reportedly told George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign at the time, that the Russians possessed "dirt" on Hillary Clinton would have been seen in public.

Mueller's attorneys described in the report released Thursday how Joseph Mifsud had attempted to hold meetings between Papadopoulos and the Russians. He also reported that Mifsud had had contact with a former employee of the Russian troll factory and contacts related to the Russian military unit, accused of hacking the Clinton campaign and emails from the Democratic Party.

Thursday night, Papadopoulos' wife, Simona Papadopoulos, tweeted an Italian article according to which the former London-based professor, who reportedly disappeared from the public at the beginning of last year, had "hidden" in Rome "for seven months in an apartment paid for by a university where Mifsud had given a course in political science.

Mifsud's profile on the school's website was removed in January 2018 and Mifsud has not been seen at the university for some time, according to a report by BuzzFeed News.

There was even an unconfirmed report last year – which surfaced in a Democratic Party trial – that Mifsud might have died. At the time, a man identifying himself as the professor's lawyer told ABC News and other people that the report was "nonsense".

Another mysterious man who resurfaced with the conclusion of the Mueller probe is the Belarusian-American businessman Sergei Millian. He was identified in reports, and later corroborated by sources interviewed by ABC News, as an unintentional source of certain information contained in an infamous record set by former British spy Christopher Steele for the Fusion GPS research firm based in Washington.

Millian has long denied this claim.

A naturalized American citizen, Millian actively supported the Trump campaign while continuing to promote his non-profit group, the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. But when key investigators, including Papadopoulos and Michael Trump's former long-time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, began to describe interactions with him, he has largely disappeared from the public.

Last year, congressional investigators tried to serve a summons on him, but their process servers could not find him. Several people who knew Millian told ABC News that he was gone.

An interview with ABC News in July 2016 is his only appearance on US television.

The Mueller report stated that in August 2016, Millian sent a Facebook message to Papadopoulos suggesting that he share with him "a disruptive technology that could be decisive for your political work in the service of the campaign".

Papadopoulos said he did not remember the case, according to the report.

Mueller's prosecutors went on to say that their team "was not quite able to explore the contact" Millian had with various personalities in Trump's orbit because he was out of their reach.

Nevertheless, Millian on Thursday tweeted that he "feels totally ruled out by the recent report" and urged public officials to "find the truth" about Steele and the founder of GPS Fusion, Glenn Simpson.

Millian tweeted several comments about the Mueller probe over the weekend, celebrating "the revealed truth" and describing his three-year experience as an "unprecedented smear campaign."

The figures described in the Mueller report have not all kept such a low profile.

The Washington-based Russian expert, Dimitri Simes, who appears to have had an influence on Jared Kushner's foreign policy platform, based on the Mueller report, has made occasional appearances over the last two years – well than more frequently in the Russian media.

The Mueller report indicates that during the 2016 campaign, Simes, who heads a think tank called the National Interest Center, has prepared a "Russian Policy Memorandum" for Kushner.

Simes describes "a well-documented story of highly questionable links between Bill Clinton" and the Russian government. The note was forwarded to senior officials of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, campaign at the time, and Vice President, Rick Gates.

Mueller's prosecutors described Simes in the report as having personally "many contacts with current and past officials of the Russian government" and cited the description of his think tank itself as having "unparalleled access to officials and politicians". Russian think tanks in Washington ". According to the report, the center comes from an organization founded by former president Richard Nixon.

According to the report, however, Simes had also already informed Kushner that it was "a bad idea" for the campaign to develop "hidden contacts with Russia", and told Kushner not to "put forward Russia as a problem "and to handle all Russian contacts with care, according to the report.

The report also revealed that after the 2016 elections, Simes had been contacted by a partner working for Petr Aven, the head of Russia's largest bank – Alfa Bank – in order to establish a direct communication between Trump administration and the Russian government. According to the report, he refused, saying that he did not want to be perceived as an intermediary between the world of Trump and the Kremlin.

Rinat Akhmetshin, a world-renowned lobbyist in Washington, DC, attended the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. He recently said that he was "happy and relieved" that the investigation ended after almost two years.

"It has hit me hard financially and has led to baseless personal attacks," Rinat Akhmetshin told ABC News in a statement, saying the process had "weighed heavily on me and my family."

"As a result," added Akhmetshin, "my ability to earn a living has been reduced, my professional status has been compromised and my personal relationships have suffered."