The Kremlin spokesman specified that he meant the so-called International Consortium of Investigative Journalists comprising journalists from Germany, the US, Britain, France, Switzerland and Russia

MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. A number of mass media are preparing an outspoken pre-planned media attack against Putin and his entourage, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told mass media.

"Another media falsehood disguised as a sample of objectivity is due within days. We have received some very honey-worded queries looking like a questionnaire from an organization calling itself International Consortium of Investigative Journalists," Peskov said. He said that publications on the basis of that query were being prepared within days in Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland and Russia. "We believe that this is an outspokenly masterminded campaign," Peskov said, adding that the organization he mentioned might involve not only journalists, but representatives of special services and organizations. Peskov said that such media provocations were likely because "special services and some mass media have joined the election campaign in our country." "They keep fanning tensions, trying to put pressures on our country and to shake loose the situation," he warned.

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"With various unseemly tricks they are trying to discredit the leadership of our country, in the first place, President Putin," Peskov said, adding that the effectiveness of such media attacks was not very high. As for the query from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Peskov said that its documents contained questions that "have been asked hundreds of times and answered hundreds of times." "The answers were legal, emotional and fact-stating." Peskov said that "the issue on the agenda is reluctance to carry out objective investigations." "The task is to mount a media attack, to stage it, cook a falsehood and embed it in the media agenda," he said. He warned that the forthcoming publications would concern Putin personally, attempts to reach information about his family and also Putin’s old-time friends, including some businessmen, among them Kovalchuk, Rottenberg and others. Also, the publications would concern certain offshore companies and "a large number of businessmen Putin has never seen in his life."

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Peskov said that "all that has already happened in various combinations and another rerun is about to take place." He also predicted what he described as "another media trick one of the very well-known international news agencies has taken interest in." "It’s all about some project for highlighting organized crime and corruption, allegations about Putin’s connections with business people, the granting of state contracts to businessmen and businessmen’s enrichment with Putin’s help," Peskov said. He pointed out that Kremlin had decided to express its attitude to this at its own initiative in advance. He voiced the hope that journalists who put their names to such propaganda stuff would seek higher professional standards after all. Peskov expressed regret over a situation where "high professionalism is sacrificed to such political servility."