Russian TV star Ksenia Sobchak flees to Lithuania

Ksenia Sobchak, one of the most famous TV faces in Russia, has fled the country. The 40-year-old traveled to Lithuania via Belarus on Wednesday. Sobchak confirmed in a statement on her website that she was outside of Russia, but did not give details of her whereabouts.

Investigators had previously searched the celebrity's property in a Moscow suburb. The commercial director of her media company, Kirill Sukhanov, was arrested on charges of extortion. The state news agency Tass and the state broadcaster RT reported, citing the police, that Sobchak was also suspected of being involved in a large-scale extortion case. Such an offense can be punished with up to 15 years imprisonment.

Sobchak denied the allegations, saying they were an attempt to put pressure on her media company, Attention Media. The authorities plan to suppress independent media. She will now take care of the "problems" from afar, according to her statement.

As the TASS news agency reported, Sobchak bought tickets to Dubai and Turkey in order to mislead the authorities. Ultimately, Sobchak left for Belarus, from where she went to Lithuania.

It is unclear how Sobchak was able to cross the border into Lithuania: the country has banned Russian citizens from entering the country. A Lithuanian border guard source said Sobchak entered the country with an Israeli passport. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Sobchak received Israeli citizenship this year. In her statement, however, Sobchak denies having any citizenship other than Russian.

Sobchak is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, who was mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin was his deputy during this time. Sobchak is reportedly Putin's goddaughter.

Sobchak became known through the TV show "Dom dwa", the Russian "Big Brother". She later turned to political issues as a journalist. For several years she has been running her own YouTube channel, on which she repeatedly criticized the Russian attack on Ukraine.

In 2018, Sobchak ran in the presidential election against incumbent Putin. At the time, however, some observers accused Sobchak of running for the election only to give the appearance of a competition. The now imprisoned opposition member Alexej Navalny called her a "parody of a liberal candidate". Sobchak denied helping the Kremlin with her candidacy.

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