Russian socialist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak said on Wednesday she planned to run in a presidential election next year, offering liberal voters unhappy with Kremlin rule someone to get behind, but will little prospect she will win.
"My name is Ksenia Sobchak, I'm 36 years old. And like any other citizen of Russia I now have the right to run for the presidency," Sobchak said in a video clip posted online.
"I decided to exercise that right," she continued. "Well, at least because I'm against everyone who usually uses this right."
Sobchak is positioning herself as a candidate "against everybody," but many have pointed out that her bid is likely to split the opposition vote.
The social-media savvy opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he will also run in the presidential race. However, he has been convicted of criminal charges, which he says have been politicially motivated, and is therefore technically not allowed to run for office by Russian law.
He has, nevertheless, managed to appeal to swath of voters and has organized protests against corruption across Russia multiple times this year. Analysts have said the geographic spread of the protests and the fact that many of the protestors were young were striking.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not officially annouced whether he is running yet, although virtually everyone expects he will - and that he will win again come March 2018.
Sobchak is the daughter of the former St. Petersburg mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, who was Putin's mentor. He died in 2000.
(Reuters reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Osborn)