Moscow ? An outspoken economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that he was resigning, saying he could no longer work in a government that had done away with political freedoms. The government later said Putin signed a decree dismissing him.

Andrei Illarionov, the lone dissenter in a Kremlin dominated by Putin’s fellow KGB veterans, was stripped of his duties as envoy to the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations earlier this year. However, he had remained Putin’s economic adviser.

Illarionov made the move after harshly criticizing the Kremlin’s course last week, when he said that political freedom in Russia has steadily declined.