"It's absolutely untrue and absurd to try and paint this story with any political colours," RIA news agency quoted Peskov as saying.

The head of the Russian Federation of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a big business group known as 'the oligarchs' union', said earlier the charges were politically motivated, comparing the case to that of former oil giant Yukos, whose ex-owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky fell foul of the Kremlin.

(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice; editing by Keiron Henderson)