Russian Official Calls Airing of Sex Video Blackmail

In Russia’s latest scandal, a brief video apparently showing the prosecutor general having sex with two prostitutes aired on state television Thursday after President Boris N. Yeltsin ordered lawmakers to fire the man and they refused.

The broadcast presumably aimed to force the prosecutor to bend to the Russian leader’s order and leave office.

But support for the embattled prosecutor, Yuri I. Skuratov, only seems to be growing, pushing Yeltsin into yet another confrontation with parliament.

“This is the result of a planned provocation, which is used to blackmail me in relation to the criminal investigation underway,” Skuratov, who has launched investigations of alleged corruption in high places, told NTV on Thursday.

Skuratov, who did not deny that the film was of him, said the video was part of a blackmail campaign that aimed to pressure his office not to release corruption findings involving government renovation contracts with the Swiss firm Mabetex.