Journalist daughter of Vladimir Putin's mentor flees Russia amid probes: Report
Russia-Ukraine War: Ksenia Sobchak, 40, a socialite and TV presenter who has publicly questioned the invasion of Ukraine, is in Lithuania.
The celebrity-journalist daughter of President Vladimir Putin’s political mentor fled Russia for Europe as police detained a close associate and raided her home as part of a criminal case for alleged extortion.
Ksenia Sobchak, 40, a socialite and TV presenter who has publicly questioned the invasion of Ukraine, is in Lithuania, authorities in the Baltic nation said Thursday. She called the investigation an attack on her online media outlet.
Sobchak, a celebrity who took part in anti-Kremlin protests that erupted before the 2012 presidential election, also ran in the 2018 race against Putin but got less than 2% of the vote. The opposition branded her participation as a ploy by the Russian leadership to give the appearance of democracy after officials barred Putin’s top opponent from contesting the vote.
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Putin has often described her father, Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Peterburg and democratic reformer, as a major influence on him when they worked together in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Ksenia Sobchak denounced the arrest of her media company’s commercial director, Kirill Sukhanov, who’s been placed in pre-trial detention. The former editor of the Russian edition of Tatler is also charged with embezzlement after a complaint by an ally of Putin who heads a state industrial holding, Sergey Chemezov, according to state media.
Police raided Sobchak’s home outside Moscow Tuesday as part of the investigation, and police have a warrant for her arrest, Tass reported.
The TV star, who’s done hard-hitting interviews about issues such as prison abuse, ran into legal difficulties with the authorities during the protests a decade ago when she was married to a top anti-Putin activist. Police raided her apartment in Moscow and confiscated 1.5 million euros in foreign currency though they later returned her the money.
