Russian investigators have raided the Moscow home of Ksenia Sobchak – the daughter of Vladimir Putin’s former boss and mentor.
Ms Sobchak, 40, made her name as a socialite and reality television star and was known as the ‘Russian Paris Hilton’ before becoming a TV journalist and opposition activist.
She is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St Petersburg, where Mr Putin served as a deputy in the 1990s.
Ms Sobchak has become a vocal critic of the Russian president – running in the 2018 elections as an opposition candidate – but only securing fourth place and 1.7% of the vote.
Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims she ran in a bid to make the contest look more democratic – and described her as a “parody liberal candidate”.
According to the Russian news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti, police raided Ms Sobchak’s luxury home in the Moscow suburbs in connection with their investigation into alleged wrongdoing by her media director.
Kirill Sukhanov has been arrested on extortion charges, which he denies.
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Ms Sobchak has rejected the accusations against Mr Sukhanov as “ravings and nonsense” and said his arrest was part of authorities’ efforts to stifle independent media.
9.4 million Instagram followers
Her whereabouts are still unknown.
Russian state media claims she bought plane tickets to Dubai and Turkey to mislead authorities but actually left Russia via Belarus in order to get to Lithuania.
She has 9.4 million followers on Instagram and first became involved in politics during the 2011-12 Moscow protests against Mr Putin.
Ms Sobchak then reinvented herself as a serious broadcaster and opposition activist.
Her father died of an apparent heart attack in February 2000 – when Mr Putin was acting Russian president.
