The quartet of Russian billionaires fighting BP over the future of TNK-BP, the joint venture, will seek to oust the company's chief executive in Moscow today.

At an extraordinary meeting of TNK-BP management, they will be asked to vote on the dismissal of Robert Dudley and a demand for BP to nominate a successor.

BP insists that it has full confidence in Mr Dudley, who has been the focus of intense criticism from TNK-BP's Russian shareholders during the long-running dispute that has alarmed foreign investors in the country.

The four billionaires, Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg, Len Blavatnik and German Khan, own 50 per cent of the joint venture established with BP in 2003 through their AAR consortium. They accuse Mr Dudley of representing only BP's interests.

This afternoon's meeting, called by Mr Vekselberg, alleges that the chief executive is guilty of "repeated infringements" of Russian employment, tax and migration laws.

Mr Dudley is expected to survive the vote of confidence because BP has a majority on the board but it will do nothing to settle the conflict between the two sides.

"The conflict between AAR and BP is about control of TNK-BP. We want the company to be managed as an independent oil company in the interest of all shareholders," Mr Fridman said.

"BP wants to operate our joint venture like a BP subsidiary and it wants to control all aspects of its business. If the company is to compete against the best and to have a successful future as a leading international oil business, this state of affairs must change."

TNK-BP has been hit by a wave of official investigations since the battle erupted over the company's future earlier this year. Its Moscow headquarters were raided by the Federal Security Service (FSB), after an employee was charged with industrial espionage.

It has also been the target of three labour inspections and a tax investigation by Interior Ministry police in which Mr Dudley was summoned for five hours of questioning last month.

A split with the Russian shareholders last week over visas for foreign workers seconded from BP only intensified the dispute.

Both sides have also turned to the courts to try to force the other to give ground. BP announced at the weekend that it was suing its partners in London for $365 million (£185 million) in back taxes, owed before the joint venture was formed, while the Russian shareholders have announced legal action in Stockholm and Moscow to try to strip BP-nominated directors of their powers.

The Russian partners are demanding greater representation on TNK-BP's boards and fewer BP secondees at the company. They are also at loggerheads with BP over the company's strategy, arguing that the British side is blocking their demand for aggressive overseas expansion.

Many in Russia see a Kremlin hand behind the conflict as part of a plan to assert state control over the country's third largest oil company. But officials around the new President Dmitri Medvedev insist that it is purely a shareholder dispute and that the Kremlin has no interest in taking a stake.

The controversy over the beleaguered $38 billion company is likely to be raised today in Japan when Mr Medvedev holds his first meeting with Gordon Brown at the G8 summit in Hokkaido.

TNK-BP was established as a joint venture in 2003 when BP paid $6.75 billion to its Russian partners for a 50 per cent stake. Tony Blair and President Vladimir Putin attended the signing ceremony of what was the biggest single foreign investment in Russia at that time.

The company produces a quarter of BP's global oil output and made net profits of $5.7 billion last year. Mr Putin told French journalists during a visit to Paris in May that he had opposed a 50-50 split at the time, saying that he had urged the two sides to "work it out between yourselves so someone has a controlling stake...there needs to be a boss".

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