- A Russian media star with sturdy ties to Putin fled the region, per various reports.
- Ksenia Sobchak, rumored to be Putin’s god-daughter, is in Lithuania, an formal there stated.
- Sobchak still left following her dwelling was searched in relationship with a high-profile extortion case.
A well known journalist rumored to be the god-daughter of President Vladimir Putin has fled Russia, according to many studies.
Ksenia Sobchak remaining Russia and entered Lithuania utilizing an Israeli passport late on Tuesday, condition-controlled media outlet TASS reported, citing unnamed legislation-enforcement officers.
On Wednesday, law enforcement searched her Moscow household as part of an extortion scenario focusing on a single of her colleagues, TASS explained, yet again citing an nameless legislation-enforcement supply. The source reported there was a warrant for her arrest.
Sobchak sought to confuse law enforcement by purchasing tickets to Dubai and Turkey, in advance of fleeing to Lithuania by means of Belarus by land late on Tuesday, per the TASS report.
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Online video circulating on social media, which Insider has been not able to authenticate, seems to clearly show her going for walks throughout the Belarus-Lithuanian border accompanied by two adult males.
Sobchak, who runs the Ostorozhno.Media team, fled just after her professional director Kirill Sukhanov was detained and his home searched.
Follwing Sukhanov’s arrest, she posted to Telegram declaring the circumstance is “nonsense” and “a further strain on journalism in the country.”
The previous editor of Russian Tatler magazine, Arian Romanovsky, was arrested in the same case, TASS reported.
Russian authorities accused the pair of extortion from the head of defense conglomerate Rostec, TASS noted.
Misha Japaridze/AP
Sobchak, 40, is a distinguished Television set anchor and socialite who turned well-known through actuality Television reveals. She later on distanced herself from her picture as “Russia’s Paris Hilton” to make a bid for Russia’s presidency .
She is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, was the initial put up-Soviet mayor of St Petersburg in the early 1990s and had Vladimir Putin as a deputy.
Putin has considering that explained Sobchak as a mentor, and Ksenia has prolonged been rumored to be Putin’s god-daughter.
However she has at times taken a liberal stance and has criticized Putin’s authorities, her presidential operate was solid by some critics as a feint staged to give the perception of competitive elections in Russia.
Putin has clamped down really hard on Russian media shops in the final decades, an exertion that has, as of the invasion of Ukraine, all but silenced independent journalism in the country.
Lithuanian counterintelligence chief Darius Jauniškis mentioned Sobchak has the appropriate to keep on being in Lithuania for 90 times, TASS documented.
