Putin allies accused of taking control of Russian 'Facebook' after firing of 'neutral' CEO

Russia's most popular social networking site's founder said he has been fired adding that allies of President Vladimir Putin have taken over his network.

In a statement, Pavel Durov, who ran Vkontakte, said he found out about the loss of his job from press reports that he was fired as general director of the network.

Durov had previously refused requests from the Russian government to censor posts on his site.

According to the BBC, he added that VKontakte would go under the complete control of Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov.

Sechin is the chief executive of state-owned oil company Rosneft and was Putin's former deputy chief of staff.

According to the report, Usmanov, who is the richest man in Russia according to Forbes, made his money in iron ore and steel and until recently held a stake in Facebook. He has a large shareholding in VKontakte via his internet company Mail.ru.

In an interview with news site TechCrunch, Durov said he was no longer in Russia and had no plans to return.

Durov had been asked by the Russian authorities to hand over the details of Ukrainians who had used the site to create groups related to anti-government protests, the report said.

He was also asked to close down a group that supported Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

He refused the request and said he sold his shares in the company so that he could continue 'to make the right decisions,' the report added.