The State Duma on Wednesday voted to investigate allegations by the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and Most Bank are conspiring to make Luzhkov president, while the mayor called for a counterintelligence investigation of the article's authors.


The Duma voted overwhelmingly to order the security committees of both houses of parliament to pursue the article's charges that Luzhkov funneled city funds to Most and then teamed up with the bank to build a shadowy media empire bent on making him president or prime minister.


Asked how the city felt about being investigated by the Duma, Yury Zagrebnoi, a city spokesman, said, "There was an exciting article published in the official government newspaper that says the mayor is involved in all sorts of crimes. Naturally, it can't help attracting the attention of the legislators."


Luzhkov has asked the Federal Counterintelligence Service, successor to the KGB, and the city prosecutor to investigate the authors of the anonymous article and, if they are found to have concocted the story maliciously, "to bring them to justice," Luzhkov's top spokesman, Sergei Tsoi, said Wednesday.


The mayor is also considering suing the newspaper, which enjoys editorial freedom but publishes government decrees. Most Bank has already announced its intentions to sue Rossiiskaya Gazeta.