Conflict around the article "Political prostitution has changed gender" On 16 March 2013, an article by Georgy Yans, titled "Political prostitution has changed gender", appeared in
MK. In it, Yans wrote about the political careers of three female
State Duma deputies from
United Russia:
Olga Batalina,
Ekaterina Lakhova, and
Irina Yarovaya. On the same day, United Russia State Duma deputy
Andrey Isayev promised on
Twitter to "toughly" deal with the authors who allowed themselves to enact a "dirty attack on three female deputies", while calling the bloggers who responded to his tweet "small creatures" who "are indifferent to" Isayev and the deputies. On 20 March 2013, United Russia deputies
Sergey Neverov, ,
Sergei Zheleznyak,
Robert Schlegel,
Olga Batalina,
Ekaterina Lakhova, and wrote requests to the Prosecutor General's Office and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, where they asked to check the publication of an advertisement of "dubious nature" in
MK. In their opinion, the editor-in-chief of
MK "cannot help but know about the true nature of these advertisements".
Gazeta.Ru associated this move by the deputies with the conflict between Andrey Isayev and
MK. On 22 March 2013, United Russia deputies demanded that the building of the editorial office of
MK be returned to Moscow ownership. The initiators were four members of the United Russia faction:
Anatoly Vyborny, , , and
Valery Trapeznikov. In October 2013, unknown persons bombarded the newspaper's editorial office with smoke bombs. Pavel Gusev believes that "some people from United Russia" are behind the attack, and the action itself is an act of revenge for the article. ==Circulation==