MOSCOW, December 8 (RAPSI) – Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of the Russian Government, has relieved Grigory Pirumov, who stands charged with embezzling 100 million rubles ($1.5 million) of public funds allocated for restoration of cultural heritage objects, of his post, Official Internet Portal of Legal Information reports on Thursday.

Pirumov is charged with four episodes of fraud related to restoration of the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, the Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics and a theater in Pskov.

This November, the Moscow City Court upheld the decision of a lower court extending detention of Pirumov until December 16.

Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov was detained alongside other high-ranking officials, including Boris Mazo, the head of the Ministry Department of property management and investment policies, on suspicion of corruption and embezzling state funds. Oleg Ivanov, the head of a state unitary enterprise for restoration works supervised by the Ministry, Dmitry Sergeyev, the head of BaltStroy, and Nikita Kolesnikov, the head of Savva Corporate Group, were detained as well.