Vladimir Putin is suddenly facing an uprising from the most unlikely source: glamorous female members of the Russian elite.
Ksenia Sobchak, widely known as Russia’s Paris Hilton for getting her start on reality television, has joined celebrity influencer and Playboy cover-star Victoria Bonya in challenging the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.
Sobchak on Wednesday publicly called on the country’s powerful Investigative Committee to launch a probe into the Kremlin’s top propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, after he called Bonya a “worn-out slut taking up space” on state-controlled television.
“I wonder if the head of the law enforcement agency shares my conviction that words are not just air, they have a price,” Sobchak wrote.
Sobchak has always been a close follower of fashion and today the hottest trend is to criticize the Kremlin’s failing policies.
It was started by Bonya, a former Playboy model who is living the dream of millions of young Russian women and enjoying a lavish life overseas. The former reality TV star steers a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea; she owns a company distributing cosmetics; she climbs Everest; she is an influencer with 13.5 million followers on Instagram. Her lips are full and her skin is smooth, thanks to a so-called ponytail facelift by celebrity plastic surgeon Chia Chi Kao in Santa Monica. Bonya criticized Putin’s failing policies and went after the Kremlin’s brutal sexists in a video appeal that went viral earlier this month.
More than 30 million people watched Bonya’s 18-minute video message to Putin as she rattled off complaints and told the Russian leader he had “no real understanding” of the plight facing ordinary Russians. “People are dying, business is dying, you are feared,” Bonya said, hedging her criticism by blaming Putin’s henchmen for not giving him “accurate information” on the state of the country. The video went so viral the Kremlin had to ask its propagandists to ignore it, coming, as it was, from a popular influencer who up until recently had expressed support for the Russian president.
The message proved impossible to ignore. Instead of fading away, Bonya’s scathing criticism poured gasoline on the fire, inspiring other women to pile on and vent their anger over Putin’s lies, the Kremlin’s blocking of the internet, and businesses collapsing amid economic woes.
Russians are fascinated by the scandal. Is Bonya, once famous for her sexual adventures with an Irish millionaire and Playboy covers, leading a revolution?
“It would be funny if she were the one to inspire everyone to stand up to this mess,” Svetlana, a doctor from Moscow, told the Daily Beast.
A well-known attorney from Nizhny Novgorod, Olga Sadovskaya, wrote on her Facebook page: “It feels like by the end of this month, the feminine collective will either revive the Women of Russia party, which was created in 1993, or start a new one.”
The furious response of Putin’s propagandists to Bonya’s new trend was predictable. Solovyov and Vitaly Milonov, a lawmaker notorious for his homophobic legislation, insulted the influencer, calling her “a whore with a dirty mouth” and a “Dubai escort.” In response, Bonya created a clip montage of their comments, followed by an Instagram reel hitting back: “We hear again and again public insults, labels like ‘prostitutes’ and ‘escorts’ addressed to famous women. This is unacceptable for someone in power, who is obligated to protect citizens, not harass them. I believe this issue needs to be raised seriously, including a class action lawsuit for defamation. This isn’t just about me anymore; it’s about systematic disrespect for all women,” Bonya wrote.
Before filing a lawsuit against Solovyov, Bonya demanded an apology, but Solovyov refused, instead saying: “This is not an insult, this is your characteristic.”
Bonya has called him “an enemy of the people” and declared that it’s time to “remove” him from state television. Her attorney in Moscow, Yekaterina Gordon, says that Bonya will withdraw her lawsuit only “if she hears his apology.”
Sobchak and Bonya are not just two women with over 25 million Instagram followers; they are influential members of the elite now leading a women’s uprising against Putin’s sexist mouthpieces.
Perhaps more importantly, they know a thing or two about the power of PR.
In her recent AI-generated reel, Bonya is depicted as Spiderwoman flying down from a skyscraper to trap her enemies, Solovyov and Milonov, in her web. Sobchak, likewise, has 10 million followers on Instagram tuning in to hear her messaging. And her latest message has been one of defiance, as she said of Bonya’s appeal to Putin: “It’s a good address, really. The bell of a revolution… This is better than nothing, so let’s not lose heart!”
Unlike Bonya, who is based in Monaco, Sobchak lives in Moscow, where she runs several businesses, including a Telegram channel called “Careful, News” read by 1.5 million people. The channel publishes breaking news and sometimes careful criticism of the Kremlin. Neither Sobchak nor Bonya can be considered members of the Russian opposition, which makes them all the more threatening to the Kremlin.
A women’s uprising has been a long time coming for Putin, who banned women’s movements and groups like the Soldiers’ Mothers and sent hundreds of thousands of their beloved men to die in wars.
He arrested women activists and politicians for speaking out; he decriminalized domestic violence, and pardoned wives’ killers. In March, Russia counted 774 women persecuted for political reasons. Moscow-based human rights defender Svetlana Gannushkina says Bonya’s protest is long overdue.
“I am not surprised that women are beginning to protest,” she said. “The situation is so bad that people who have never been involved in any political movements or any human rights activity are incapable of keeping silent any longer.”
