The Kremlin official added that the former administration staffer did not attend meetings with the Russian leader

Axar.az reports citing TASS that Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Oleg Smolenkov worked in the Russian Presidential Administration a few years ago but was fired under an internal directive.

“It is true, Smolenkov used to work in the Presidential Administration but a few years ago he was dismissed through an internal instruction,” Peskov told reporters. “His position did not belong to the category of high-ranking state officials.”

“This is the only thing I can tell you, I have no other information,” Peskov said, clarifying that he spoke about 2016-2017. The spokesman also did not specify the reason behind Smolenkov’s dismissal.

Commenting on media reports that the American intelligence ‘extracted’ its ‘agent’ from Russia in 2017 fearing that he would be exposed, Peskov said that this is “pulp fiction” style talk. “All these speculations in the American media that somebody urgently extracted someone and who rescued someone and so on are some sort of pulp fiction, you know. Let’s leave it to them,” he urged.