I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Ksenia Sobchak before and if I have I don’t remember it. She’s the daughter of the former mayor of St. Petersburg, a man who Putin once described as a mentor. She started out in media as a TV presenter and then moved into journalism. She’s quite famous and even ran for president in 2018. Tuesday night she fled to Lithuania.

A prominent TV celebrity and former socialite with close family ties to President Vladimir Putin has fled Russia in the wake of a criminal probe, the latest sign of the war in Ukraine’s domestic impact.

Ksenia Sobchak, who was once known as the “Russian Paris Hilton,” arrived in Lithuania on an Israeli passport, the Baltic country’s state security service confirmed to NBC News on Thursday…

Sobchak, 40, is one of the best-known people in Russia.

She has often been critical of Putin and voiced opposition to the war, but opposition figures have viewed her family history — as well as her transformation from party girl to politician and well-connected journalist — with suspicion, accusing her of helping to serve the Kremlin’s agenda.

Her 2018 run for office was seen by Russian opposition figures as an attempt to make it appear there was a free election. In any case, her escape from Russia appears genuine enough. She tricked authorities:

Russian media said Sobchak had fled Russia on Tuesday night, crossing the Belarus-Lithuania border after tricking the Russian authorities by buying plane tickets from Moscow to Dubai via Istanbul.

In CCTV footage circulating online, Sobchak can be seen covering her face and wearing a cap as she crosses what appears to be the Lithuanian border on foot.

Here’s the video clip.

A channel associated with #Belarusian security forces published a video of Ksenia #Sobchak crossing the Belarusian-Lithuanian border at the Vidzy checkpoint. pic.twitter.com/rNRQzuCZBN

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 27, 2022

Russia is claiming she fled because there was an arrest warrant out for her in connection to extortion allegedly committed by her media director. Her apartment was raided the day after her escape.

Russian investigators on Wednesday raided the home of Ksenia Sobchak, the glamourous daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s one-time boss, in a move that has sent shockwaves through the country’s political scene…

Investigators said that the search at Sobchak’s luxury home in a prestigious Moscow suburb was part of a probe into alleged wrongdoing by her media director, Kirill Sukhanov, who was arrested on charges of extortion.

Sobchak on Tuesday rejected the accusations against Sukhanov as “ravings and nonsense” and described his arrest as part of the authorities’ efforts to stifle independent media…

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, argued that the raid has sent a signal to members of the Russian elite that all bets are off.

“If they can arrest the daughter of Putin’s patron … it means there are no untouchables,” Markov wrote in a commentary. “For some members of the elites, an arrest warrant for Sobchak is a blazing sign in the skies.”

There are at least two obvious possibilities here. One is that Putin is clamping down on the media (something we know he’s been doing) and the extortion claims and the raid on the apartment were all meant to convey a message that no one, not even people Putin is personally connected to, can speak freely anymore.

If officially charged, the move against Sobchak would represent another escalation in the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent, as the authorities seek to further narrow any room for criticism in the country.

“Sobchak always tried to sit on both chairs,” Alexander Rodniansky, a prominent Ukrainian-born movie director and longtime friend, wrote on his Instagram channel on Thursday, referring to her journalism while maintaining personal connections to the ruling elite.

“That might have been possible before, but times have changed … And now she is fleeing from a fabricated case against her.”

The other possibility is that Sobchak and her media director really are guilty of some kind of extortion or self-dealing. Of course, Putin has lots of friends who could be arrested for that so it’s pretty hard to believe this is all the work of an independent police force being guided by evidence and the law.

Sobchak appeared on CNN with Don Lemon back in 2018 when she was running for president. If she’s faking this, if she’s actually just a stooge for Putin, I have to say she’s pretty good at it because it sounds sincere to me.