AS RUSSIA’S most famous socialite, Ksenia Sobchak, a highly paid TV presenter and fashionista, has long been regarded as untouchable. Rumour has it that Vladimir Putin is her godfather.
But three months after she surprised fans and critics alike by joining anti-government protests, Sobchak has found herself the target of a smear campaign by figures associated with the Kremlin.
In what some believe is a warning to Russia’s It girl that her activism is displeasing Putin, she has been accused of attacking two female reporters from a tabloid website said to be close to the authorities.
Sobchak, 30, who has been called a Slavic Paris Hilton, was dining at her luxurious Moscow restaurant with a group including two prominent critics of Putin when security guards caught the reporters secretly filming the trio. She confiscated the camera’s memory card and had them evicted.
But Life News, the site that sent the reporters, has filed a complaint with police, alleging that a drunken Sobchak viciously attacked them and briefly held them hostage.
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The day after the confrontation, Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s most senior state sanitation official, was reported to have said that Sobchak’s restaurant should be investigated.
The grounds were that her dinner guests had violated health laws by crossing the kitchen to leave through the back door, a charge so absurd that it is being read as a warning that her star in the Kremlin is fading.
“The whole thing is a lie,” said Sobchak, who hit back by posting a spoof internet video in which she brandishes an armchair at someone who poses as a reporter and secretly films her.
“I wasn’t violent and I am teetotal. I didn’t assault anyone; all I did was confiscate what they had shot, as they were filming and recording a private conversation without permission. It looks like this is the beginning of a smear campaign. Knowing Putin, I think it’s safe to say that he isn’t happy with the public stand I have taken.
“My mother is very worried. She thinks I’m pushing things too far, but for now I’m not concerned. I have tried to meet Putin to explain to him face to face where I stand, but so far it hasn’t been possible.”
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Sobchak’s father, Anatoly, the mayor of St Petersburg in the early 1990s, was once Putin’s boss and mentor.
Putin, who has just been elected to a third term as Russian president, helped Sobchak when he fell out of favour with the authorities and had to flee the country. Twelve years after his death, Putin still speaks fondly of him.
Sobchak herself has undergone an unlikely transformation in recent months from glamour girl to acerbic social commentator with her own political TV show. Her tweets and blog have more than 300,000 followers.
Last December, she began attending the largest anti-Kremlin demonstrations in two decades to protest against rigged parliamentary elections in which Putin’s ruling party won a narrow majority.
“My discontent had been brewing for some time, but I was torn between my eternal gratitude towards Putin as a human being for how he helped my family and my growing, negative view of what’s happening in the country,” she said.
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In a move that left her mother, a pro-Putin senator, in tears, Sobchak took to the stage to speak before 100,000 anti-government demonstrators.
She has also fallen out with Tina Kandelaki, a close friend and fellow TV presenter. The two socialites, who once caused a furore by kissing on national TV, argued after Kandelaki expressed support for Putin’s party, an act Sobchak said “was tantamount to prostitution”.
Sobchak is now a fixture at rallies and worked as an independent observer during the elections — she filed a complaint after proving that a girl had been promised £100 to vote for Putin several times.
“Society is changing and I want to make my contribution,” said Sobchak. “People such as me, who have done well under Putin, now look around and realise that the air is stifling. This is not a passing fad. We’re seeing the beginning of a new perestroika.”
Putin, who has ruled Russia since 2000, won nearly 64% of the votes in the election, which the opposition say was rigged.
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“Putin is fiercely loyal to those he considers close to him,” said a Kremlin ex-aide. “But he’s also unforgiving with those he thinks betray him. . . . Now [Sobchak’s] flirting with Putin’s critics, many will think she’s fair game.”