Former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak kicks off talk show on state TV with episode on high-profile domestic abuse case

Ksenia Sobchak, a Russian media celebrity known in the West for her 2018 presidential run, aired the first episode of her new talk show for the state-run Channel One on February 10. During the episode, Sobchak told viewers that she intends to innovate a new kind of television program called a “doc-talk” show. In this format, she explained, actors recreate real events to provide material for hosts and guests to analyze.

The events up for analysis in Sobchak’s first episode for Channel One were the abusive actions of Mikhail Khachaturyan, whose daughters killed him in summer 2018 after allegedly enduring years of physical, sexual, and verbal oppression at his hands. Aurelia Dunduk, the mother of Maria, Angelina, and Krestina Khachaturyan, attended the show along with the sisters’ older brother Sergey.

Sobchak began her conversation with Dunduk by discussing current legislative efforts to re-criminalize first-time domestic abuse in Russia and institute other preventative measures. That discussion was followed by the first “doc” segment of the episode: Sobchak and her guests watched a reenactment of Mikhail Khachaturyan raping Dunduk early in their relationship.

The show’s second reenactment depicted Khachaturyan arguing with Sergey, who was not his biological son, and shooting a pistol inside their apartment in the process. Sobchak said these events were reconstructed “in order to determine what was happening in this family.”

Sobchak asked Dunduk and her son what “triggered” Khachaturyan’s actions, why Dunduk left him only when he banished her from their home, and why she left their daughters with him. “Knowing that this man had raped you, why did you make peace with that fact? Nobody’s blaming you here. We just want to understand the reasons [for your actions],” Sobchak said. Dunduk responded, “I didn’t have a choice. He was threatening everybody.”

Some of the show’s other guests supported Dunduk while others accused her of seeking to benefit personally from the Khachaturyan case. At the end of the episode, Mikhail Khachaturyan’s nephew Arsen arrived on the scene and accused his relatives, including the three sisters, of defaming Khachaturyan’s memory and inventing their claims of abuse. The domestic violence bill mentioned early in the program did not resurface in the rest of the show.

The second episode of Sobchak’s new program is scheduled for the evening of February 11.