Ex-Russian supermodel and Putin critic reveals she’s on Kremlin’s hitlist

A prominent Russian opposition activist living in the UK has told of her surprise after her name cropped up on a hitlist of Kremlin critics.

Ksenia Maximova said that she is among Vladimir Putin’s foreign-based opponents who are targeted for poisoning with a nerve agent.  

Ms Maximova is highly visible as the director of the vocal Russian Democratic Society (RDS), a London-based group opposed to Putin’s regime and his attack on Ukraine.  

Tensions between the UK and Moscow have ratched up further this week after Washington granted permission for Ukraine to fire Western-supplied long-range missiles into Russia. 

The former supermodel, who has dual British and Russian nationality, told Metro that she is working on the assumption that the list is a scare tactic aimed at putting a chilling effect on the Kremlin’s targets.

She has continued campaigning but nevertheless spoken to UK Counter-Terror Police and taken steps to safeguard her security, including explaining to her children what a nerve agent is.  

Ms Maximova said: ‘I have been told that I am on a hitlist created by Russia as a form of psychological warfare against critics of Putin’s living abroad.

‘The list is quite long and has key opposition figures as well as those like me who are lower down the food chain.

‘The targets are marked for poisoning with a nerve agent is all I can say.

‘I speak at rallies and I am quite recognisable but I am surprised that I am on there. 

‘I found out after a fellow activist was approached at a facility in another country by a person who referred to me by my patronym, which almost no one knows, so it suggests someone has seen my Russian documents.

‘When I tried to look into who this person was, their name was not connected to the country that they said they were attached to.’ 

Dmitry Gudkov, a Russian politician living in exile in an EU country, was pulled aside by plain-clothes UK police and told he was on the list when he arrived at Luton Airport last summer.  

The co-founder of the Anti-War Committee, which opposes Putin’s regime and his war in Ukraine, told the BBC that the officers intercepted him immediately after he stepped off the plane and asked him ‘where I’ll be staying and what phone I’ll be using.’ 

A chilling example of the Kremlin’s treatment of political opponents followed in February with the death of opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny at a harsh penal colony in the Arctic Circle.

The working assumption among pro-democracy activists is that list has been drawn up by Putin’s shadowy ‘special services’.  

A Russia-linked hybrid war is currently playing out in the UK, leading to a warning from MI5 director-general Ken McCallum that ‘Putin’s henchmen’ are seeking to ‘generate mayhem’ on British and European streets.

The wide-ranging threats from the Kremlin have been further illustrated by speculation concerning an incendiary device which caught fire in a package at a DHL warehouse near Birmingham.

Counter-terrorism officers are reportedly investigating whether Russian operatives are behind the incident, which involved the blaze taking place after the parcel was flown into the country. 

Meanwhile a public inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess as an indirect consequence of the Skripal nerve agent attack is taking place in London.

The attempted hit was targeted at Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia at their then home in Salisbury. Three suspects working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence are believed to be behind the assassination attempt in 2018, which led to Ms Sturgess’s death after she sprayed herself with novichok contained in a discarded perfume bottle.  

While Russian spies operating under diplomatic cover have been expelled from the UK since the tragedy, Moscow is believed to have turned its focus to the use of proxies and cyber-warfare.

‘I doubt that Putin’s security and intelligence services would be able to implement hits on so many high-profile people,’ Ms Maximova said.  

‘It’s more likely scare tactics and on a practical level not going to countries within the Russian sphere of influence, such as Armenia and Georgia, which I wouldn’t do anyway.’ 

Cyber hacking has also formed a major part of Moscow’s covert operations against Western nations. 

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden warned on Monday that Russian cyber attackers can ‘turn off the lights for millions of people’ and ‘shut down power grids’ in NATO countries.  

Activists such as Ms Maximova, 38, have already been targeted with spear-phishing and other types of malware attacks.  

In August, the Londoner was sent a plausible-seeming email purportedly from the head of the Washington-headquartered Free Russian Foundation, Natalia Arno, asking her to read a report. 

‘It looked realistic and we aim to share research so I opened the report only to see it get immediately picked up by my cyber-security,’ she said. 

‘It turned out to be a massive hack thought to have been carried out by a Kremlin-linked threat group known as Cold River.  

‘It’s now part of legal action being brought by Microsoft, which has included taking down more than 100 domains used by Cold River and other Russian threat actors.  

‘At the Russian Democratic Society we went to the US digital-rights organisation, Access Now, who said we had been targeted as part of the widespread FSB hack.’  

The RDS has continued organising protests and activities under a white-blue-white flag — symbol of the anti-war, pro-democracy opposition. 

Ms Maximova echoed comments made by Marina Litvinenko, widow of former FSB officer turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, that Putin’s chief aim is to sow fear and disunity among his opponents.

Ms Litvinenko spoke last week about the president’s ‘psychological warfare’ as she prepared to mark the 18th anniversary of her husband’s death following his poisoning with radioactive polonium.

‘Personally, I feel that Putin’s operatives are trying to spread fear and create rifts among Russians abroad who oppose his regime,’ Ms Maximova said.

‘The threats and hacks are most likely the first part of a campaign designed to break us apart, but none of us have stopped standing up for democratic values and an end to the war in Ukraine.’ 

The stakes nevertheless remain high as the Kremlin escalates its ‘grey zone’ war to new levels — including through a sinister threat to prisoners released in a summer spy swap to ‘actively disguise themselves under the witness protection programme.’ 

‘We obviously have to be careful about safety and security, not just our own but when we communicate with people in Russia,’ Ms Maximova said. 

‘Russian citizens advocating for Ukraine are given terrorist status in their home country, so we have to protect those we come into contact with.   

‘In my view, Putin is trying to keep us out of the country and to build a wall between us and the ordinary citizens.  

‘The Russian Democratic Society continues to speak out and be visible because Russians abroad don’t have a legitimate government and we need to provide an international platform where we can support human rights, democracy and Ukraine’s fight for freedom.  

‘Otherwise Putin will succeed in portraying the illusion that everyone is supporting him and his war in Ukraine.’   

Metro has approached the Home Office for comment.

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