Playboy model from iconic Pulp album cover has chilling link to Putin
She is also known for being on the iconic cover of Pulp's 1998 album, This Is Hardcore
DO YOU REMEMBER? Playboy model from iconic Pulp album cover has chilling link to Putin
A PLAYBOY model who featured on an iconic album cover has a surprising link to Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin.
Ksenia Sobchak, 41, posed for the lads' mag in 2006 and was on the iconic cover of Pulp's 1998 album, This Is Hardcore.
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The presenter and politician transformed her image
Credit: East2West
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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 Instagram 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.'
Sobchak ran unsuccessfully in opposition to Putin in the 2018 election - in place of banned candidate Alexei Navalny.
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Navalny 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.
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"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 Russianpolice 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.
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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, Sobchak said: "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 Russian equivalent of Paris Hilton in the Noughties.
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