TV host and ex-presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak flees Russia after apartment search - CNN

CNN  — 

Russian TV big and 2018 statesmanlike campaigner Ksenia Sobchak has fled Russia for Lithuania, Russian authorities quality bureau TASS reported Thursday.

Sobchack entered Lithuania utilizing her Israeli passport, according to the country’s State Security Department manager Darius Jauniskis.

“Yes, I tin corroborate that Sobchak is successful Lithuania,” TASS cited Jauniskis arsenic saying.

Sobchak near the state aft it was revealed connected Wednesday that her flat had been searched arsenic portion of the transgression lawsuit against her commercialized manager Kirill Sukhanov, who was detained connected extortion charges.

“Our commercialized manager Kirill Sukhanov has been arrested. They are trying to complaint him with extortion,” Sobchak wrote connected her Telegram transmission Wednesday.

Sobchak denounced this arsenic “nonsense” and an onslaught connected her editorial team.

“I don’t judge [these charges] astatine all, and I anticipation that present they volition rapidly benignant everything retired and volition spot that each this is immoderate benignant of nonsense,” she said. “If not, past it is evidently a raid connected my editorial bureau – the past escaped editorial bureau successful Russia, which had to beryllium clamped down.”

Sobchak is simply a fishy successful the lawsuit of her manager accused of extortion of 11 cardinal rubles (roughly $179,000) from the caput of Rostec authorities corp Sergei Chemezov, a instrumentality enforcement bureau root told TASS.

The defence is readying to entreaty Sukhanov’s detention, his lawyer Svetlana Lipatova said Wednesday.

Born and raised successful St. Petersburg, Sobchak has adjacent ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was mentored by her precocious father, reformist person Anatoly Sobchak, astatine the commencement of his governmental career.

In the 2010s Ksenia Sobchak often attended absorption protests and rallies, but mislaid enactment from absorption figures aft moving for the Russian presidency successful 2018.

Her determination to tally for the presidency was wide criticized by leaders of the Russian opposition, including Alexey Navalny, who accused her run of being a sham and labeled her arsenic a “Kremlin project.”