Vladimir Putin ’s police are seeking to jail the Russian tyrant's own ‘goddaughter’ Ksenia Sobchak, the nation's leading female opposition politician.
The prominent journalist and former presidential election candidate is accused of “spreading falsehoods about government agencies”, which could land her in jail for up to three years.
The accusation is the latest sign that Putin’s regime cannot cope with any dissent and sees enemies everywhere as it conducts its unpopular war with Ukraine and illegally annexes foreign territory.
Sobchak, 40, has known Putin since her childhood and her father gave the ex-KGB spy his first political job - but this has not saved her from police interrogation and a demand for criminal prosecution.
Putin - who will be 70 this week - even attended her baptism and many believe he is her godfather.
The draconian action appears linked to an interview on her online media which included an allegation by exiled film director Vitaly Mansky that "at least 85% of the budget gets stolen" at the Moscow International Film Festival.
Police had already begun a fruitless libel action against man sky who now lives in Latvia, out of reach of Putin’s law enforcement.
Now they have switched attention to Sobchak who - despite rumours earlier in the war - has remained in Russia.
At the time she said: “I am Russian, I am a citizen of Russia.
“I do not emigrate anywhere, I have no other citizenships.”
Police have sent “evidence” on her to the Russian Investigative Committee, which probes serious crime and his headed by Putin crony Alexander Bastrykin, his former university classmate.
Sobchak is being probed under an article covering the “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the execution of its authority by a government agency”, a new law enacted after the start of the war with Ukraine with a punishment of up to three years in jail.
She earlier told police interrogators that she “was ready to assume responsibility as the platform where the falsehood appeared doesn’t have any administrators, and the story had no editors or video directors”, said a TASS report.
Sobchak’s late father was Anatoly Sobchak was Putin’s law professor and mentor who gave the KGB spy his first foothold in politics as deputy mayor of St Petersburg.
While she has strongly opposed Putin’s policies in recent years, he has close and longstanding ties to her family.
Putin even smuggled her father out of Russia for medical treatment in the West at a time when his patron was wanted for alleged corruption.
Putin was later pictured at the former mayor’s funeral in 2000, alongside Ksenia, and her mother Lyudmila Narusova, a Russian senator who has voted against war-linked legislation in the Russian parliament and accused his state TV of “shameless lies” over the conflict.
Ksenia - one of Russia’s best known faces - came fourth in the 2018 presidential election in Russia, widely seen as heavily rigged in Putin’s favour.
Despite criticising Putin, she held a personal meeting with the Russian leader before announcing she would oppose him in the poll.
Ksenia was earlier a popular reality TV host and posed for Playboy.
