Putin 'pal gal' flees motherland

Vladimir Putin’s rumored goddaughter — dubbed the “Russian Paris Hilton” — fled Russia shortly before police raided her mansion in connection with an extortion case.

Ksenia Sobchak (left and circled), 40, who first gained fame as a glamorous reality TV star and ran against Putin in the 2018 presidential election, fled to Lithuania, according to Vilnius officials cited by Agence France-Presse.

An official at Lithuania’s state border service told AFP on condition of anonymity that she had arrived on an Israeli passport.

Russian news outlets reported earlier that Sobchak was a suspect in an extortion case. Investigators said the search of her home in a swanky Moscow suburb was part of a probe into alleged wrongdoing by her media director, Kirill Sukhanov, who was slapped with extortion charges.

On Tuesday, Sobchak dismissed the allegations against Sukhanov as “ravings and nonsense” and described his arrest as part of the efforts to block independent media.

Attention Media runs several social media projects, including Sobchak’s YouTube channel, which has over 3 million subscribers, according to AFP.