Ksenia Sobchak: “Russian Paris Hilton” and critics of Putin were invaded by the police | World news

Russian investigators searched the Moscow home of Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of the former leader and teacher of Vladimir Putin.

Ms Sobchak, 40, made a name for herself as a socialite and reality TV star and was known as the “Russian Paris Hilton” before becoming a television journalist and opposition activist.

She is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg, where Putin was deputy in the 1990s.

Ms. Sobchak has become a vocal critic of the Russian president – she ran in the 2018 elections as an opposition candidate, but took only fourth place and 1.7% of the vote.

Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims she ran to make the election more democratic and called her a “parody liberal candidate.”

According to the Russian news agencies TASS and RIA-Novosti, the police searched Ms. Sobchak’s luxurious home in the suburbs of Moscow in connection with an investigation into alleged violations by her media director.

Kirill Sukhanov was arrested on charges of extortion, which he denies.

Ms. Sobchak dismissed the allegations against Sukhanov as “delusion and nonsense” and said his arrest was part of the authorities’ efforts to stifle independent media.

9.4 million followers on Instagram

Her location is still unknown.

Russian state media claim she bought plane tickets to Dubai and Turkey to mislead authorities, but actually left Russia via Belarus to get to Lithuania.

She has 9.4 million followers on Instagram and first got involved in politics during Moscow’s anti-Putin protests in 2011-12.

Then Ms. Sobchak transformed herself into a serious leader and opposition activist.

Her father died of an apparent heart attack in February 2000 while Putin was acting president of Russia.