Aeroflot's largest private shareholder said on Monday it would oppose the chief executive's removal -- which could be proposed at the March 26 board meeting -- but added that it cannot stop the move alone.

Leonid Dushatin, the Aeroflot board member representing 30-percent stakeholder NRC, said it would damage the company to unseat Valery Okulov in the middle of the financial crisis.

"This decision is madness. It's like putting out a fire with kerosene," Dushatin said. "There is no reason to do this now."

Earlier this month, Transport Minister Igor Levitin offered Okulov a job as one of his six deputies, a relatively low-profile post for a decorated pilot who heads a blue-chip company and has 34 years of experience in civil aviation.

One of Levitin's serving deputies, Andrei Nedosekov, said last week the ministry was determined to hire Okulov away from Aeroflot soon.

Okulov, however, has said he is dedicated to his job and it is too early to discuss his departure. "(Aeroflot) is not just a transitional phase in my life. It is my life," Russia's Vedomosti business daily quoted him as saying last week.

An independent member of Aeroflot's board, Sergei Aleksashenko, said on Monday that the question of removing Okulov was not yet on the agenda for the March 26 meeting. But the government could enter it at any time, he added.

The government owns 51 percent of Aeroflot, Russia's flag carrier, while 30 percent is owned by the National Reserve Corporation (NRC) of media and banking mogul Alexander Lebedev.

Dushatin said he would vote against any proposal to unseat Okulov, the politically connected son-in-law of Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin.

Asked if his vote would be enough to block the decision, Dushatin said: "Unfortunately not".

The favorite candidate to replace him has been named by the Russian media as Vitaly Savelyev, a former deputy economy minister who now works at services conglomerate Sistema.

Savelyev's total lack of experience in the aviation sector has raised concerns among industry analysts.

Okulov has spent more than a decade turning Aeroflot from a loss-making Soviet-era behemoth into a modern airline. His personal and political contacts have accounted for much of the firm's lobbying power in a heavily regulated industry.

Also on Monday, Aeroflot confirmed its bid to acquire more than 90 percent of national Czech airline CSA.