Khimki Moscow Region GM Pavel Astakhov commented upon this decision:

“All those who love and support Khimki for many years – fans, sponsors, partners – did not expect that we would find ourselves in such a difficult situation and our team would show such a result. We highly appreciate the contribution of Rimas Kurtinaitis to the development of our club, the best pages of our history are connected with him, but in these circumstances we had no other option. We have decided to dismiss Rimas and appoint Andrey Maltsev as interim head coach. Maltsev is a strong Russian specialist, who has experience as a head coach, many titles with youth teams, and work under the most successful European coaches. After weighing all the pros and cons, we decided to give Andrey Maltsev the opportunity to prove himself as our head coach”.