Vladimir Putin’s granddaughter and one of the Russian media figures; Ksenia Sobchak has reportedly fled to Lithuania from Russia, according to Border officials in Vilnius.
Sobchak is the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mentor. She is reportedly Putins’ goddaughter. Her father, the late Saint Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak was Putin’s boss. Russian senator Lyudmila Narusova is her mother.
Sobchak is a popular media personality, TV anchor, journalist, socialite, and actress. She stood in opposition to Putin in the 2018 elections. A Lithuanian official in conversation with AFP confirmed Sobchak’s arrival. Lithuania had earlier barred Russians from entering the borders amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Russia’s news agency TASS reported that the 40-year-old journalist departed from Moscow at night, and flew to Lithuania via Belarus.
Sobchack entered Lithuania using her Israeli passport, according to the country’s State Security Department director Darius Jauniskis.
This is not the first time any Russian has fled the country. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine and the announcement of mobilization a few weeks back, thousands of Russians have fled the country.
Sobchak’s media group, ‘Attention Media’ has been under constant pressure from the government.
Kirill Sukhanov; the commercial director of the group was earlier arrested by the government during an investigation. Sobchak’s villa was also searched thoroughly during the investigation.
Sobchak left the country after it was revealed on Wednesday that her apartment had been searched as part of the criminal case against Kirill Sukhanov, who was detained on extortion charges.
“Our commercial director Kirill Sukhanov has been arrested. They are trying to charge him with extortion,” Sobchak wrote on her Telegram channel Wednesday.
Sobchak denounced this as “nonsense” and an attack on her editorial team.
“I don’t believe [these charges] at all, and I hope that now they will quickly sort everything out and will see that all this is some kind of nonsense,” she said. “If not, then it is a raid on my editorial office — the last free editorial office in Russia, which had to be clamped down.”
