Friday, October 1, 2010

Moscow's Mayor


Longtime Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was sacked by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to this article by the BBC. Although the official reason for the firing was that Luzhkov no longer had "the trust of the president of the Russian Federation", other possible reasons are cited including mishandling the wildfire crisis and corruption stemming from his billionaire wife. Most interesting is the last potential reason for the firing:

Commentators believe this battle at the highest level of Russian politics was sparked by a newspaper article written by the mayor in which he appeared to criticise the president and call for a return to stronger national leadership, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow.

This article from Russian news site Pravda.ru does not mention such a "battle." It only reports on Luzhkov's corruption allegations. Perhaps this is an example of Russian state-controlled media influencing what is reported?

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