Moscow, 22 July: Russian chief state public health officer and head of Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare) Gennadiy Onishchenko has described the actions of tobacco manufacturers in the Russian Federation as "nicotine genocide" of the Russian people and said that "a court of law should pass judgment on these actions".

"It appears that confrontation with the cynical Russian tobacco sinecure, which has lost all moral standards, rules and principles, which is in the service of foreign and above all US capital, and is headed by Ms N.Shkolkina (director-general of the Council for Tobacco Industry Development Issues - Interfax) has entered a new phase," Onishchenko said in an Interfax interview.

"The superprofits of US corporations are being paid for by catastrophic repercussions for the health of the young generation of Russians," the Rospotrebnadzor head said.

He said that the number of Russian citizens of working age smoking cigarettes on a regular basis had increased by 440,000 in the past 20 years, reaching catastrophically high comparative figures: 60 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women in Russia now smoke. Furthermore, 80 per cent of these men and 50 per cent of the women started smoking as teenagers. Annual consumption of cigarettes in Russia currently stands between 375bn and 4,000bn (figures as received).

"Even these inhuman wages of other people's welfare, however, do not satisfy these gentlemen," Onishchenko said. "They are pressing for medievally high levels of nicotine and tar in cigarettes to be set for Russia, enabling them to flog the worst-quality tobaccos to the Russian people at legally set levels."

"The boundless cynicism of these people is also confirmed by the fact that, while serving the interests of foreign capital, which cashes in on nicotine genocide of the Russian people, these so-called 'citizens', who are themselves flunkies of US capital, spread defamatory allegations, claiming that it is, on the contrary, the medics who are lobbying the interests of US capital."

"In view of this, the leadership of the federal service (Rospotrebnadzor - Interfax) have instructed legal services to explore the possibility of criminal prosecution of these gentlemen, and well as publicizing the unseemly actions of the above organization and its foreign masters," Onishchenko said.