LATVIA HAS bluntly rejected a request for residency from former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and banned him from entering the Baltic state, as doubts continue to cloud his future in Russia.
Mr Luzhkov ran Moscow for 18 years before suffering a dramatic fall from grace last summer, when he was sacked by President Dmitry Medvedev amid allegations of incompetence and graft.
His demise coincided with reports in state-run media implicating Mr Luzhkov’s billionaire wife Yelena Baturina – a construction company boss who is Russia’s richest woman – in corruption.
The couple deny the claims and no charges have been brought, but pressure has been building on them and several associates since Mr Luzhkov was replaced as Moscow’s mayor by Sergei Sobyanin, a loyal ally of Mr Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
According to Latvian media, Mr Luzhkov (74) qualified for residency because he invested about €285,000 in a local bank and owned property in the Baltic seaside resort of Jurmala, which has long been popular with Russians.
His application triggered speculation over why one of Russia’s best-known politicians would seek residency in a country that he has regularly denounced for alleged discrimination towards its large Russian-speaking minority. He once compared Latvia to Cambodia under Pol Pot and called for a boycott of Latvian goods in Moscow’s shops.
While some Latvians feared he would stir up Russian dissent in the country, others believed he was seeking a refuge in the EU from a possible legal attack launched by the Kremlin.
“This is not a move to Latvia. I shall never abandon my homeland, if it does not reject me,” Mr Luzhkov insisted.
“I am applying for this status in order to have freedom of movement,” he explained, in reference to Latvia’s membership of the Schengen zone that allows passport-free travel between 25 EU states.
While some senior Latvian officials had no qualms with Mr Luzhkov’s request, interior minister Linda Murniece swiftly quashed his application by declaring him persona non grata.
“My reason for putting him on the blacklist is his attitude to Latvia, his hostile statements about Latvia, his wish to use Latvia to achieve his private goals,” she said.
“He always said publicly that he basically hates this country. I think that is a good enough reason for him not to get a residence permit,” she added.
