MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. Russia’s State Duma Deputy Speaker Andrey Isayev believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin at his year-end news conference on December 17 made it quite clear that after groundless allegations against senior officials there will be no "sacral victims".
"The president replied to the high-profile charges that were made against certain senior officials of late. We are well aware that as the elections draw near, the accusations will beceom ever more frequent," Isayev said on behalf of his faction at the beginning of the lower house’s full-scale meeting.
"The president recalled that Russia was a state ruled by law and that all suspicions were unconditionally scrutinized by the law enforcers and other watchdog agencies, such as the Control Directorate and the Audit Chamber," he said.
"Not a single person is untouchable, but it is important to ensure the charges should be based on specific facts and the laws that have been violated," Isayev said. "But there will be no sacral victims on the basis of charges that rely on catchy phrases and public relations technologies."
On December 1 the non-governmental organization calling itself the Fund of Struggle against Corruption, founded by opposition figurehead Alexey Navalny, published its probe claiming that one of the sons of Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika allegedly owned a hotel in Greece and that Chaika’s sons reportedly had stakes in two key affiliates of the Russian railways company RZD.
Chaika has dismissed all charges as groundless and said that "the slanderous TV documentary had been ordered by British subject William Browder and secret services behind him."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia’s presidential administration might check the situation with the prosecutor general and his family members for a conflict of interest.