Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

Blotting your copybook (from Fears Russian wildfires could drive radioactive Chernobyl waste ...)

Yury Luzhkov left for holidays and "treatment for a serious sports injury" as the city sweltered on 2 August and did not return until Sunday, several days after a toxic cloud had enveloped Moscow.

A senior health official has said the smog killed at least 320 more people each day than usually die in the city.

Luzhkov, in office since 1992, is the last of the regional heavyweights in Russian politics, but his future as city boss has looked increasingly fragile amid allegations of sleaze and incompetence.

The prime minister, Vladimir Putin, greeted the tanned-looking mayor in a televised meeting yesterday, saying: "You were quite right to return from your vacation. Your timing is perfect."

Observers interpreted the comments as disapproval. "Luzhkov underestimated the political situation and he underestimated how serious and tense the situation in Moscow is," said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin.

"Surely, he is in a very weak position now and worsened it even more by saying, amid all that is happening, that the situation in Moscow is quite normal."

Before Luzhkov returned, his spokesman, Sergei Tsoi, had said there was little reason to cut short the break because the fires causing Moscow's smog were outside the capital and therefore "nothing depends on the city authorities in dealing with the current environmental situation".

Luzhkov, 73, denied rumours that he was getting treatment in Tyrol, Austria, but declined to say where he had been.

The deputy mayor, Vladimir Resin, made a clumsy attempt to exonerate his boss, saying he had a backlog of 370 days' holiday. "He could have taken a whole year off," he said.

But a Kremlin source said it was "too bad" Luzhkov hadn't returned sooner.

"The mayor's absence obviously did not help the necessary decisions to have been made in timely fashion," the source said.