Ksenia Maximova, a former top-50 model and now a Liberal Democrat councillor in Ealing, has been charged by Russia with terrorism and plotting to seize power in Moscow. She denies the charges. The accusations were accompanied by a smear campaign on state television, which alleged she and other Russian dissidents in London work with British intelligence.
FSB Warning and Security Fears
An anonymous official from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) warned that the dissidents' "fate is sealed." Maximova, 40, who leads the UK-based Russian Democratic Society, said she has had briefings with the police but is not sure what they can do. "Unless they give me 24-hour protection, they can't really protect me," she told The Times. "London is full of Russian elites and their kids and people who work for them. So it's super easy for [the Kremlin] to find someone to do something to me."
She added that she spends a lot of time in Kyiv and believes it is safer there for her personal security. "But since I've been elected as a councillor, I obviously can't be in Ukraine all the time," she said.
From Catwalks to Council Chamber
Born in Chaykovsky in Russia's Urals region, Maximova moved to Britain with her parents in the late 1990s and attended school in Ealing. She became a British citizen in 2003 and was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor in the London suburb in May. She has ambitions to become an MP.
After finishing school in Ealing, she returned to Russia and was spotted by a model scout in Moscow as a teenager. She appeared in Vogue and other fashion magazines and worked for President Trump's model agency in New York. In 2004, aged 18, her agent took her to meet the future US president at Trump Tower. Her agent implied the meeting was aimed at setting her up with one of Trump's sons. "That kind of freaked me out," she said.
Activism and Personal Safety
The Russian Democratic Society, which Maximova leads, runs protests against the war in Ukraine outside the Russian embassy in London and lobbies for sanctions against President Putin's allies. She often travels to Ukraine, including to wartorn cities such as Kherson and Kharkiv, to show support and network with officials.
The FSB has also accused her of the "psychological harassment" of Russian embassy officials, likely referring to her 2022 appeal for them to quit their posts during an anti-war protest. "We'll find you jobs!" she shouted through a loudspeaker outside the embassy. She was later told some had resigned but has been unable to confirm this.
Maximova, who has two adult children, has not visited Russia since 2018 due to the Kremlin's crackdown on dissent. "Unfortunately I have an agreement with my grandmother that if something happens to her, we're probably not going to see each other anymore," she said.
Local Issues and UK Preparedness
Besides opposing Putin, she has tackled local issues in her ward, including housing problems and an unpruned lime tree outside the property of an elderly resident with lung disease. "It's very hard, to say the least. But I love being a councillor," she said.
Her trips to Ukraine have convinced her that Britain is unprepared to face a potential attack, hybrid or otherwise, by Russia. "You see it clearly when you get back to the UK from Kyiv, or from the front," she said. "You start thinking about how capable people are of defending themselves, or how prepared the country is to close the skies [to Russian attacks]. It doesn't take a genius to assess that people are not ready and the country is not ready."
