Surkov left of his own free will

Vladislav Surkov quits as Russia's deputy prime minister.

Vladislav Surkov, the Russian deputy prime minister, known as a strategist who designed Russia's tightly-controlled politics, has quit, the Kremlin has said.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Surkov had left his post voluntarily.

Surkov had served as deputy prime minister after being dismissed from the post of first deputy Kremlin chief of staff in a shake-up in December 2011.

Surkov, 48, has been considered the ideologue of Putin's domestic political strategy who oversaw political parties in parliament, electoral campaigns and the tightly controlled media.

He worked in the Kremlin administration from 1999 before his unexpected transition to the government seen at the time as the Kremlin's reaction to the mass anti-Putin protests in 2011.

The departure of Surkov, who had for the past year and a half has been in charge of modernising the Russian economy, comes as Russian investigators are probing the Skolkovo hi-tech fund where Surkov sits on the supervisory board.