Listen to this articleValery SharifulinTASS by way of Getty Images
- A Russian media star with strong ties to Putin fled the country, per a quantity of evaluations.
- Ksenia Sobchak, rumored to be Putin’s god-daughter, is in Lithuania, an official there talked about.
- Sobchak left after her residence was searched in reference to a high-profile extortion case.
A distinguished journalist rumored to be the god-daughter of President Vladimir Putin has fled Russia, in response to a quantity of evaluations.
Ksenia Sobchak left Russia and entered Lithuania using an Israeli passport late on Tuesday, state-controlled media outlet TASS reported, citing unnamed law-enforcement officers.
On Wednesday, police searched her Moscow residence as half of an extortion case specializing in one of her colleagues, TASS said, as soon as extra citing an anonymous law-enforcement provide. The provide talked about there was a warrant for her arrest.
Sobchak sought to confuse police by purchasing for tickets to Dubai and Turkey, sooner than fleeing to Lithuania by way of Belarus by land late on Tuesday, per the TASS report.
Video circulating on social media, which Insider has been unable to authenticate, appears to point her strolling all through the Belarus-Lithuanian border accompanied by two males.
Sobchak, who runs the Ostorozhno.Media group, fled after her industrial director Kirill Sukhanov was detained and his dwelling searched.
Follwing Sukhanov’s arrest, she posted to Telegram saying the case is “nonsense” and “another pressure on journalism in the country.”
The former editor of Russian Tatler journal, Arian Romanovsky, was arrested in the similar case, TASS reported.
Russian authorities accused the pair of extortion from the head of safety conglomerate Rostec, TASS reported.
Misha Japaridze/AP
Sobchak, 40, is a distinguished TV anchor and socialite who turned well-known by way of actuality TV reveals. She later distanced herself from her image as “Russia’s Paris Hilton” to make a bid for Russia’s presidency .
She is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, was the first post-Soviet mayor of St Petersburg in the early Nineties and had Vladimir Putin as a deputy.
Putin has since described Sobchak as a mentor, and Ksenia has prolonged been rumored to be Putin’s god-daughter.
Though she has at situations taken a liberal stance and has criticized Putin’s authorities, her presidential run was strong by some critics as a feint staged to offer the impression of aggressive elections in Russia.
Putin has clamped down exhausting on Russian media retailers in the ultimate years, an effort that has, as of the invasion of Ukraine, all nevertheless silenced unbiased journalism in the country.
Lithuanian counterintelligence chief Darius Jauniškis talked about Sobchak has the correct to remain in Lithuania for 90 days, TASS reported.
