New Russia’s First Sex Scandal

A video that ruined a career… The images of a man in bed with two prostitutes were aired nationwide on a state-controlled Russian television channel in March 1999. The man was claimed to look similar to Russia’s then-Prosecutor General, Yury Skuratov. The story broke out at the time when political sex scandals were virtually unheard-of in Russia. Shortly before the broadcast, Skuratov had launched corruption probes into several prominent government figures. He dismissed the scandalous tape as an attempt to discredit his anti-corruption work. But the President at the time, Boris Yeltsin, condemned Skuratov for alleged moral unscrupulousness and scheming. Although it wasn’t conclusively proved that the man in the video was actually the Prosecutor General, and evidence was reportedly found indicating that the tape may have been edited, Skuratov was eventually dismissed.