Playboy model from iconic Pulp album cover has chilling link to Putin
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The presenter and politician transformed her image
Credit: East2West
4
She used to be known as a party mag in London
Credit: East2West
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She became known for being on the cover of Pulp's album
Credit: Wikipedia
But the glamorous socialite ditched her party-ways and remade herself into a journalist and liberal politician who has been accused of being a "Kremlin stooge" by opposition activists.
She is Putin's goddaughter and the offspring of one of his first political mentors - the ex mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly A. Sobchak - who put him on the path to presidency.
The unlikely pair have known each other since the 1990s when her dad launched Putin's political career.
However, she has been vocal about being against the Ukraine war - and insists she helps residents of Russian border regions
displaced by Ukrainian shelling.
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She and the President have reportedly have not spoken since the war began, nor seen each other.
Sobchak now works as an influencer on
YouTube
, interviewing critics of the war. arrests of antiwar activists.
In a conversation with her 9.5million
fans about the conflict, she said: 'I believe that this is a horrific situation, but we're going to get through this time, we'll get through it together with our audience.'
in the 2018 election - in place of banned candidate
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accused her of being a puppet opposition candidate to Putin - to give the illusion of democracy.
She said at the time: "In a system created by Putin, it is only possible for Putin to win.
Scheming Putin's tactics to help Iran attack the West REVEALED as Tehran vows revenge
"I am realistic about who will become the president."
Sobchak was hit by further controversy in her media career in 2022 when she was
hunted
by Russian
police
over claims of extortion and tax fraud.
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At the time she claimed it was a "politically motivated move" when three of her former employees were accused of trying to
extort
money
from the head of state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec.
After fleeing cops in Moscow, she escaped to
Lithuania
via Belarus after police arrested her
business
partner.
4
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Credit: Reuters
However, after returning to
Russia
, Sobchak visited the Rostec office to reconcile with boss Sergey Chemezov for the "actions of colleagues" accused of extortion and said "their fate will be decided by the
court
".
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When the three ex-employees were jailed for seven years, their former boss slammed the verdict as 'way more than injustice.'
'I've done everything we had agreed to get leniency [for Kirill Sukhanov, Arian Romanovsky and Tamerlan Bigayev],' she wrote in a statement.
'Why are you ruining people's lives?
'Why the disproportionality? Just as revenge?'
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Her despair over the
Ukraine
war sparked a popular YouTube show in which she deals with stories that Russia's state media usually turn a blind eye to.
Her interests include the arrests of antiwar activists, violence committed by soldiers returning from the front and
human rights
abuses in the southern region of Chechnya.
Speaking of the Ukraine war,
"We are all locked in this situation now. There is no way out.'
Ksenia - who was once named the 22nd most influential woman in Russia - was the
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