MOSCOW –
Russian investigators on Wednesday raided the home of Ksenia Sobchak, the glamourous daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s one-time boss, in a transfer that has despatched shockwaves by way of the nation’s political scene.
Sobchak, a 40-year-old TV star, has typically been crucial of Putin, however many Russian opposition figures have accused her of serving the Kremlin’s agenda. In 2018, she grew to become a liberal challenger in Russia’s presidential election, ending a distant fourth with about 1.7% of the vote in what her critics described as a Kremlin effort so as to add a democratic veneer to Putin’s sweeping re-election.
Investigators mentioned that the search at Sobchak’s luxurious home in a prestigious Moscow suburb was half of a probe into alleged wrongdoing by her media director, Kirill Sukhanov, who was arrested on prices of extortion.
Sobchak on Tuesday rejected the accusations towards Sukhanov as “ravings and nonsense” and described his arrest as half of the authorities’ efforts to stifle unbiased media.
The state Tass and RIA-Novosti information businesses mentioned that Sobchak had fled Russia. Tass claimed she had purchased tickets to Dubai and Turkey to mislead the authorities however ultimately left for Belarus, from the place she moved to Lithuania. The stories claimed that investigators suspected Sobchak of being concerned in the extortion scheme alongside together with her media director and alleged {that a} warrant was issued for her arrest.
The claims could not be independently confirmed. Sobchak hasn’t commented on the allegations and her whereabouts had been unknown.
Sobchak has intensive contacts amongst Russia’s wealthy and highly effective, and the search of her home topped home information.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, argued that the raid has despatched a sign to members of the Russian elite that each one bets are off.
“If they can arrest the daughter of Putin’s patron … it means there are no untouchables,” Markov wrote in a commentary. “For some members of the elites, an arrest warrant for Sobchak is a blazing sign in the skies.”
Sobchak is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, a liberal mayor of St. Petersburg for whom Putin served as a deputy in the Nineteen Nineties.
Sobchak has 9.4 million followers on Instagram, and her glamour, sharp wit and defiant methods have made her each beloved and loathed.
She first gained fame as a modern socialite and actuality TV star and was as soon as dubbed the “Russian Paris Hilton,” however later sought to shed her spoiled and conceited picture.
Sobchak bought concerned in politics when she joined the large protests in Moscow towards Putin in 2011-12, and later reinvented herself as a severe TV journalist and opposition activist.
Sobchak has denied serving the Kremlin’s agenda by operating as a challenger to Putin in 2018. But opposition chief Alexei Navalny denounced her for discrediting the opposition by becoming a member of the race, saying that she was a “parody of a liberal candidate” and her involvement in the marketing campaign helped the Kremlin forged the opposition in a destructive gentle.