Russian TV star Sobchak declares her presidential bid

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Russian TV star Sobchak declares her presidential bid

2017-10-19 12:49 Last Updated At：12:49

A Russian celebrity TV host shook up the country's political scene Wednesday by announcing her presidential bid, a move that would likely boost public interest in the race but could further fragment the nation's beleaguered opposition.

Ksenia Sobchak, 35, announced her intention to become a candidate in March's election in a YouTube video, arguing that Russia has grown tired of its current political elite and needs a change.

Sobchak, the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, the reformist St. Petersburg mayor in the early 1990s, first became known as a socialite and a fashion icon before she launched her successful TV career.

Sharp-tongued and witty, Sobchak has been often critical of the Russian government. She joined anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow in 2011-2012 but has largely avoided criticizing President Vladimir Putin, who once worked as her father's deputy.

Putin, 65, hasn't yet said whether he will seek re-election on March 18 but he's widely expected to run. With approval ratings topping 80 percent, Putin would win in landslide against torpid veterans of past Russian presidential campaigns, like Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky or liberal Grigory Yavlinsky. They have all signaled their intentions to run again in 2018.

Sobchak told Dozhd TV that she had warned Putin that she planned to join the race while interviewing him recently for a documentary about her father.

"I had an impression he didn't like it," she said of Putin's reaction.

Some pundits, however, said Sobchak's candidacy should please the Kremlin, helping counter growing voter apathy without posing a threat to Putin. Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, warned that Sobchak's bid would further fragment and weaken Russia's opposition.

When rumors about Sobchak's intentions first appeared recently, Russia's most popular opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, warned her on YouTube that she would play into the Kremlin's hands if she enters the race. Navalny is currently serving a 20-day jail term for organizing an unsanctioned protest.

Navalny has also declared his intention to enter Russia's presidential race, even though a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated bars him from running. The 41-year-old anti-corruption crusader has organized a grassroots campaign across Russia to support his nomination. It has organized waves of protests this year, putting pressure on the Kremlin.

"They need a cartoonish liberal candidate at a time when they don't want to allow me to enter the race," Navalny said in a warning to Sobchak.

Sobchak has rejected Navalny's criticism, saying that if he is allowed to run she would consider withdrawing her candidacy in his favor. She has cast herself as a "candidate against all," appealing to broad public dismay with Russia's tightly-controlled and corrupt political system.

Like other self-nominated candidates, Sobchak needs to gather 300,000 signatures to get registered for the race. Those nominated by parties represented in parliament don't need to do that.

The candidates haven't reached the formal registration stage so there is no exact count of their number yet.

Sobchak wouldn't discuss possible sources of funding for her campaign in a nation as vast as Russia, but her high-level connections in Russia's business world could help her bid.

2 Russian businessmen linked to Alfa Group win court case over EU sanctions

2024-04-10 19:48 Last Updated At：19:50

BRUSSELS (AP) — Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven won a court case Wednesday over a European Union decision to sanction them for their alleged role in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The EU General Court said a lack of evidence justified their removal from a list of persons who faced restrictive measures between February 2022 and March 2023. The EU in March last year kept Aven and Fridman on the lists. The two have also challenged that decision in separate cases still pending.

Fridman is a founder of Alfa Group and ranks as one of Russia’s wealthiest tycoons. The group’s Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest non-state bank, was sanctioned by the EU in March 2022, prompting Fridman to leave the board to try to help the bank skirt sanctions. Aven headed Alfa Bank until March 2022, but like Fridman left the board after the EU move.

The EU has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia since Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine. The measures have targeted the energy sector, banks, the world’s biggest diamond-mining company, businesses and markets, and subjected Russian officials — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — to asset freezes and travel bans.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed Wednesday's ruling.

“Of course representatives of big business have the opportunity to challenge these sanctions decisions ... and they are doing that,” Peskov told reporters. “In any case, we consider all these sanctions illegal, unfair and destructive."

Neither Fridman nor Aven had directly criticized the war. They instead asked well-known anti-war Russians to sign a letter asking that EU sanctions against them be lifted.

Leonid Volkov, the chief of staff to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, signed the letter and later said he regretted doing so.

Volkov said the decision to delist Fridman and Aven was “very bad” because it showed that tycoons could have sanctions lifted without publicly criticizing Putin or the war in Ukraine.

“What the Europeans have done now makes no sense,” Volkov wrote on social platform X.

“Fridman and Aven never said a word in public against the war and did not go into conflict with Putin. The EU Court simply gave them what they wanted on a silver platter. For what? What signal is the court sending to Putin, his friends, and Russian oligarchs?” he added.

Aven, of Russian and Latvian nationality, and Fridman, who holds Russian and Israeli passports, were placed on the list for restrictive measures after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The two challenged the decision and the General Court said their inclusion was not justified because there was insufficient evidence that they provided material or financial support to Russian decision-makers, or were associated with war efforts undermining Ukraine.

“The General Court considers that none of the reasons set out in the initial acts is sufficiently substantiated and that the inclusion of Mr Aven and Mr Fridman on the lists at issue was therefore not justified,” the Luxembourg-based court said in a statement.

Fridman has called the war a tragedy and for the “bloodshed” to end. He previously lived in Britain but reportedly returned to Moscow after fighting between Israel and Hamas began.

Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions against four Russians on the board of Alfa Group, including Aven and Fridman.

Rulings by the General Court can be appealed to the European Court of Justice.

Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.