Vladimir Putin is poised to brand his own goddaughter a ‘foreign agent’ in his crackdown against dissent in Russia, it is believed.
The Russian president has turned his anger on Ksenia Sobchak, 40, a prominent Russian TV presenter and the country's leading female opposition politician.
Sobchak, who stood against Putin in the 2018 presidential election, has known the Russian leader since she was a child, and he attended her baptism.
Putin is not confirmed to be her godfather but unconfirmed reports have speculated of such a relationship for years.
Her late father Anatoli Sobchak was Putin’s law professor and mentor who gave the KGB spy his first foothold in politics as deputy mayor of St Petersburg.
The head of the shadowy Public Committee for the Detection of Foreign Intervention, Aleksandr Ionov, said a check was underway into whether Sobchak was funded from abroad.
Her online media outlet Ostorozhno Novosti is also under investigation.
“If foreign funding is found, Sobchak will become a foreign agent,” said Ionov.
His previous interventions have led to prominent independent media outlets Meduza and Important Stories being branded ‘foreign agents’ by the authorities.
Sobchak said: “Thanks to him, soon I will become a foreign agent.”
She posted on Instagram - which is blocked as ‘extremist’ in Russia: “What can I say? Feeling proud.
“To have your own opinion means absolute freedom.”
The Russian government has used the tag ‘foreign agent’ to seek to curtail the activities of anti-Putin political and media groups, and to allege funding by Putin’s ‘enemies’.
The designation wraps them in red tape and forces them to identify themselves as being under foreign influence.
Many have been forced into exile abroad.
Sobchak likened the designation to the Soviet-era crackdowns on dissent, accusing Putin’s henchmen of using any laws to block her.
Earlier the pro-Kremlin media alleged that Sobchak had obtained Israeli citizenship, and fled abroad soon after the war started, which she denied.
She hit back: “I am Russian, I am a citizen of Russia.
“I do not emigrate anywhere, I have no other citizenships.”
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 Anatoly Sobchak 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.
Ksenia 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 had earlier posed for Playboy.
After the war began, Ksenia expressed concern for her mother who was the first major Russian figure to stand up and condemn the war.
Narusova accused Putin’s state TV channels of “shameless lies” over its coverage.
She accused Putin of using conscripts in the war in Ukraine despite a promise not to do so.
And she said the bodies of slain Russian soldiers were being gnawed by stray dogs.
