President fires Moscow’s mayor ‘who let his wife make millions’

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today sacked the flat-capped wearing mayor of Moscow after a bitter feud marked by allegations of corruption involving his wife, the country's richest woman.

Mr Medvedev announced that he had "lost trust" in Yuri Luzhkov, who has run the capital for 18 years, after a succession of clashes.

At the centre of the dispute were claims in state-run media that Mr Luzhkov had allowed his billionaire wife Yelena Baturina to profit from a massive construction boom.

The mayor has also been blamed for the traffic gridlock in Moscow, for bulldozing historic buildings and for staying on holiday while residents suffered from the smog and heat of this summer's record high temperatures.

Mr Luzhkov, 74, who has denounced the allegations against him as "total rubbish", responded with criticisms of Mr Medvedev seen as a threat to the president's authority and an attempt to drive a wedge between him and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.

The increasing tension had led to speculation that Mr Luzhkov, who is also renowned for his hostility towards gay pride marches and for placing billboards picturing Stalin on the streets during Second World War victory anniversary celebrations last May, would quit voluntarily. But yesterday he announced he would not resign, prompting Mr Medvedev to use a presidential decree to dismiss his rival.

Mr Luzhkov recently suggested that the country needed a stronger and more decisive leader, a remark seen as favouring Mr Putin before the 2012 presidential elections.

Famous for his blunt manner, Mr Luzhkov rode a wave of petrodollars to transform central Moscow with a building boom that has left Muscovites crawling through some of the world's worst traffic and cursing a power grid that has suffered two severe blackouts.

While many viewed their city's changes with pride, Mr Luzhkov was despised by conservationists for allowing the destruction of historic buildings on valuable land. In some cases, including the famous Moskva Hotel, the buildings were replaced by structures resembling the old ones — making parts of the city into clumsy replicas of itself.

He also promoted the gargantuan sculptures of Zurab Tsereteli, including a 370ft statue of Peter the Great in the Moscow river, which is ranked in some surveys as one of the world's ugliest structures.

In 2008 Ms Baturina unveiled Project Orange, a Norman Foster complex shaped like slices of fruit, with a facade that would cast an orange glow over the Moscow river. A year later she applied for $1.4 billion in government loan guarantees for her construction company, Inteko.