Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin refused on Monday to blame his predecessor Yury Luzhkov for the Russian capital’s problems.
“If you analyze my speeches you will notice that I have never said anything bad about Yury Mikhailovich [Luzhkov],” Sobyanin said during the Posner program on Channel One.
“You probably can look for those guilty. But the key thing is not who is to blame but what to do,” Sobyanin said when asked whether criticism of Luzhkov was just.
Long-serving Luzhkov was fired in September last year after a public row with President Dmitry Medvedev. Sobyanin, then government chief of staff, took over Luzhkov’s post.
The new mayor in particular pledged to solve the city’s traffic problems, including Moscow’s notorious traffic jams and lack of parking places.