2018 presidential candidate Kseniya Sobchak has given a press conference to journalists today in which she revealed some of the key aims of her campaign and her own stance on a number of major issues facing the country.

While taking questions from journalists Sobchak claimed that she is setting out to disrupt the elections which she called a “high-budget show”.

Sobchak condemned the coming elections in open terms: “I understand perfectly well that what is taking place right now is not an election, it’s the appearance of an elections.  What we’re seeing right now is more like a high-budget show which, as a professional I can say, is of a fairly low quality.”

Show business is nothing new to Kseniya Sobchak, and she knows the rules very well.  “My goal is to shake up the show.  My goal is to establish my own rules of the game.”

In her opening campaign video, which has been widely circulated on Youtube, Sobchak claimed that she was running as a protest vote.  Her motto was “the candidate against all”.  During today’s press conference Sobchak explained that the 2018 presidential campaign could become a “genuine national referendum in which through the option “against all” we’re going to gather a huge number of people.”

During the press-conference Sobchak also revealed her campaign manager, the journalist and political analyst Igor Malashenko.  Malashenko was once of the heads of the TV company NTV under Vladimir Gusinsky’s ownership, before the company was acquired by Putin’s government and Gusinsky was forced leave Russia for good.

Malashenko explained that “the campaign will have many voices, we may not all agree with each other”, clarifying that he did not believe that Sobchak should revoke her candidacy if Alexey Navalny is allowed to run, a promise which she made earlier this month.

Sobchak recently interviewed Vladimir Putin for a film she is making about her father Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Petersburg and Putin’s political mentor.  Kesniya reportedly stayed behind after the interview to talk to Putin in private, a revelation which has got many people talking.  There has been much speculation that Sobchak is running as part of a Kremlin “project”, although she denied such allegations as being “without evidence”.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced his stance on the Russian presidential elections earlier today claiming that “The upcoming Russian presidential election is not an election in the conventional sense, regardless of the participation of Gregory Yavlinsky, Alexey Navalny or Kseniya Sobchak.  It’s still less important to what extent the presidential administration considers these candidates their own personal “project”.  Even the return of the candidate “against all”, as Kesniya Sobchak emphasised in her campaign, does not fundamentally change anything, although it is in itself useful and just.”

The Russian presidential elections are fixed for March 2018, but Vladimir Putin is keeping the world in suspense by not officially revealing whether he will run or not for a fourth presidential term.  As more candidates step forward to enter the political arena, the next 5 months are guaranteed to be a very interesting spectacle indeed.