Agence France-Presse reported that Ksenia announced on the video social networking site that she intends to participate in the general election as an independent candidate.
According to Russian law, candidates nominated by political parties can directly participate in the general election, and independent candidates nominated by themselves need to raise 300,000 signatures to be eligible to stand for election. The BBC said that if Ksenia wins the election, she will become the first female presidential candidate in 14 years.
Ksenija, 35, was born in St Petersburg, the second largest Russian city. In 2004, she became famous by hosting the reality show "House 2". With blonde hair and bronzed skin, she resembles paris hilton, the heiress of Hilton Hotel, who is also rich and bold in appearance and style, and is called "Russian paris hilton" by the media.
This year, Kseniya ranked 10th on Forbes list of Russian celebrities with a revenue of $265.438 billion.
Kseniya's father Anatoly is a teacher at St. Petersburg University. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he was elected as the first mayor of St. Petersburg and died in 2000. The sobchak family has been in close contact with President Vladimir Putin. Anatoly is Putin's university teacher and political leader, who campaigned for Putin before his death. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President and current Prime Minister, is an old colleague and subordinate of Anatoly.
However, on 20 1 1, Kseniya joined the opposition camp and took part in demonstrations against Putin.
Ksenia's announcement of her candidacy caused controversy. Some people question that her purpose is to increase public attention. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny even accused on social media that as an "impossible candidate", her actions would deepen the division of the opposition.
The BBC reported that the Kremlin welcomed Kseniya's candidacy, saying it was completely constitutional. Putin has not commented on this. However, when Kseniya was a guest on a program of Russian "Rain" TV channel recently, he said that in an interview with Putin, he had already revealed his intention to stand for election. Although I am not sure what the other party thinks, Putin "gives me the impression that he doesn't like my decision."
Russia is scheduled to hold a presidential election in March next year. Putin has not yet announced whether to run for re-election, but Russian public opinion generally hopes that he will continue to serve as president. Putin's public opinion support rate at this stage is as high as 80%.