Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev suspended Deputy Sports Minister Yury Nagornykh, who was named in a report on the doping of Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Medvedev's press secretary Natalia Timakov said on July 18 that the suspension will last "until the investigation into the [World Anti-Doping Agency's] report on the involvement of Russian state officials in the doping scandal is over."
She said the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office is carrying out Russia's internal investigation into the charges.
President Vladimir Putin had said that Russian officials named in the WADA report would be temporarily suspended.
The WADA report said Nagornykh was told about every positive drug test across all sports from 2011 onwards, and it was he who decided "who would benefit from a cover-up and who would not be protected."
The report's author, Canadian sports lawyer Richard McLaren, said the role Nagornykh played in quashing positive drug tests for selected athletes was "beautiful in its simplicity" and part of an "efficient" state system for covering up doping.
