Moscow's acting mayor Vladimir Resin has fired the prefect of the capital's northern district, Oleg Mitvol, the City Hall said on Tuesday.
Mitvol, who was appointed to the post in July 2009, said he did not know why he had been sacked.
He had been off work on sick leave since Monday and intended to return to work next week.
Mitvol said he "could not understand why such a fuss was being kicked up just a few days before the appointment of the new mayor."
Mitvol is best known for his five-year stint as head of the country's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor.
In 2006, he threatened to revoke Royal Dutch Shell's license for developing an oil and gas field off Russia's Pacific coast, but Shell said it was an attempt to secure a Russian role in the Sakhalin 2 oil and gas development project.
He attracted media attention again in September when he ordered the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (Russian for Our People) out of a deserted kindergarten in northern Moscow, which he claimed was occupied by the activists illegally.
MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti)