Russia's FSB Foils Plot To Assassinate Putin's Two Favorite 'Propagandist' TV Stars
July 17 2023, Published 8:55 p.m. ET
The Russian FSB claimed to have stopped an assassination plot of Vladimir Putin's TV star "goddaughter" and one of his top female "propagandists," RadarOnline.com has learned.
The Kremlin Secret Service accused Ukraine's intelligence agency of putting a price on the heads of Margarita Simonyan, 43, and Ksenia Sobchak, 41. The agency claimed to have intercepted assassination plans before the suspects could carry out the attack.
Sobchak's ties to Putin date back to her childhood. The Russian TV star's late father, Anatoly, then-mayor of St. Petersburg, acted as a political mentor to Putin as he rose through the ranks of the Kremlin. Putin was said to be present at her Orthodox baptism, which sparked rumors that he was the 41-year-old's godfather.
Despite her close upbringing with Putin, Sobchak, who runs an independent media outlet Caution News, was an outspoken critic of the Russian president and the Ukraine war.
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On the other hand, Simonyan, 43, was an avid supporter of Putin. The propagandist's pro-Kremlin advocacy earned her the nickname "Goebbels in a skirt."
She is the current editor-in-chief of the Russian state TV broadcast RT and the state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya.
The FSB said that neo-Nazi Yegor Savalyev, 22, was allegedly offered £12,700 for each hit. The 22-year-old was detained in Ryazan along with five others — and allegedly confessed to his involvement on the record.
In the recording, Savalyev appeared to recite a rehearsed confession, in which he claimed he was "Mikail Balashov" of Moscow.
"I created a Neonazi gang Paragraph 88 and got [my] underage friends involved in it...I was contacted by Ukraine's special services," Savalyev said. "We were offered [to commit] the contract assassination of Margarita Simonyan and Ksenia Sobchak."
Savalyev claimed he "conducted reconnaissance" of the TV star's home to "get money." A "conductor" was allegedly supposed to "leave a Kalashnikov automated gun for me and money."
Ksenia Sobchak
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"When I arrived at the place where the weapon was supposed to be, I was caught by the employees of the [Russian] intelligence service," the suspect stated.
The FSB claimed their agents "seized a Kalashnikov assault rifle, cartridges, edged weapons, Nazi symbols, literature, as well as communications equipment and computers with information about the preparation of the assassination attempt."
Contrary to the Russian secret service agency's claim, one critic alleged the plan was "more likely an FSB provocation."
Sobchak's Caution News previously reported that the suspect had been jailed for four years on unrelated "extremist" offenses.
