MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. Lawyer Alexander Asnis, who represents the interests of the Russian state-owned corporation Rusnano, has confirmed the fact of a criminal investigation against Deputy Chairman of the company’s Executive Board Yuri Udaltsov and Advisor to Chief Executive Officer and ex-Finance Minister Yakov Urinson suspected of defalcation.

"In 2013, a criminal charge was launched against Urinson and Udaltsov over defalcation. Despite this as of now the investigation has combined this criminal case and the "Melamed case", those counts are not interconnected," Asnis told TASS, adding that both Udaltsov and Urinson have been considered as suspects since 2013 though no charges have been filed.

However, he said, Rusnano sees no law violations committed by Urinson and Udaltsov. "Rusnano assumes their actions were within the bounds of the law and caused no public damage," Asnis said.

Investigators consider former head of Rosnanotech (Rusnano's predecessor) Leonid Melamed, his deputy Andrey Malyshev and the company’s financial officer Svyatoslav Ponurov to be the organizers in the case of embezzlement of 220 mln rubles ($3.3 mln) worth of the corporation’s funds.