Lawmaker Andrei Isayev has offered to resign as deputy secretary of United Russia's general council after being kicked off a plane for a supposedly drunken brawl.
Isayev said he regretted the incident on board a St. Petersburg-Moscow flight Tuesday night and was submitting a letter of resignation, RBC reported.
Despite his words of regret, he appeared to blame the incident on the aide who accompanied him.
"I want to apologize to everyone who was inconvenienced by the incident. I regret this and I believe that in this situation I must take responsibility for my aide as well," Isayev said, RBC reported.
Secretary of United Russia's general council, Sergei Neverov, who had vouched to take the matter seriously, said Isayev had made "the right decision" by submitting his resignation notice.
"We have stressed many times that moral and ethical norms for all party members, especially those in leadership positions, are a priority," Neverov said.
Isayev's voluntary resignation is more a symbolic act than a true sacrifice because the post is not very significant, and the lawmaker will most likely retain his party membership, Mikhail Vinogradov, a political analyst with the St. Petersburg Politics Fund, told Izvestia on Wednesday.
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