MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's chief prosecutor was dismissed from his post Friday in what senior officials have lined up to suggest is part of a planned staff rotation bereft of political intrigue.
Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, 53, had asked President Vladimir Putin to relieve him of his duties, the president's representative to parliament, Alexander Kotenkov, told the upper chamber, which endorsed the move.
Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Federal Council, said he had met with Putin Thursday and been told about the imminent move.
"I understood from our conversation that this was a technical decision and there was absolutely no political subtext," he said. "This is part of a personnel reshuffle that the president intends to carry out."
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of the lower chamber of parliament and the leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, echoed Mironov, saying the dismissal simply reflected a time for new blood given that Ustinov had been in the post since 2000.
"A change of era has happened, new faces are needed," he said.
Alexander Khinshtein, a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party who has pursued corruption accusations against former premier Mikhail Kasyanov, said the move could mean a planned rotation in the Prosecutor General's Office and that Ustinov would likely get a new high post.
Other lawmakers were quick to deny any connection between the prosecutor's decision and a corruption campaign that Putin highlighted in his May 10 state of the nation address.
Since then a number of senior security officers from the Federal Security Service and high-ranking officials from the Federal Customs Service have been fired as investigators launched a graft probe. Ustinov said at the time that new high-profile criminal cases could be launched in the near future and in May berated his colleagues for the influence of organized crime in Russia.
But Pavel Krasheninnikov, a former justice minister and current chairman of the head of the lower house of parliament's legal committee, said "There is no way this is linked with anti-corruption cases."
Ustinov's time in office was dominated by the Yukos case, which culminated in the virtual dismemberment of the oil company and the imprisonment of founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for tax evasion and fraud.
A source in the Kremlin said the dismissal was part of Putin's plan to make sweeping personnel changes.
"Law-enforcement bodies will continue the fight against crime and corruption, maintaining law and order in the country," the source said.
Mironov said a new candidate would be discussed soon and experts have suggested presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak, who was behind reforms of the judiciary while he was in the Kremlin administration, is the most likely successor.
Umar Dzhabrailov, a member of the Federation Council from Chechnya, said he wanted to see Kozak, a 46-year-old graduate of Leningrad State University, take over the reins.
"Kozak would make a good prosecutor general as he is an expert in this field," Dzhabrailov said.
