President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday appointed former prime minister and long-term nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko to the key position of deputy head of his presidential administration.

The appointment is the latest in a broader reshuffle by the Russian leader that has seen some of his top allies shifted.

The Kremlin published a decree on the appointment of Kiriyenko, who briefly served as prime minister under Boris Yeltsin in 1998 during an acute financial and economic crisis.

The 54-year-old is making a surprise return to the political scene after 11 years in the lower profile role of head of state nuclear agency Rosatom.

He takes over from Vyacheslav Volodin, who has become the parliament speaker after helping the ruling party gain a crushing victory in parliamentary polls last month.

Kiriyenko was just 35 when he was appointed by Yeltsin to replace Viktor Chernomyrdin as prime minister. He had previously served as energy minister.

He was premier for just five months before being fired along with the rest of the government after the financial crisis of August 1998 when Yeltsin allowed the ruble to devalue and millions lost savings.

He went on to head the liberal Union of Rightist Forces party which backed free market reforms, and briefly served as an MP.

He then became a presidential envoy in a Russian region and headed a government group tasked with decommissioning chemical weapons, before heading Rosatom in 2005.

"Kiriyenko, due to his political background, is seen as a relative liberal but recently as a civil servant and head of a state corporation, he worked for the state," a source close to the Kremlin told Vedomosti business daily.

"Today in government bodies, people from the first Putin terms are seen less and less frequently, and those from the Yeltsin era are a real rarity," wrote Kommersant business daily, highlighting Kiriyenko's career longevity.

"Yesterday's young man has turned out to be a political survivor."

In the last year of his reign, ailing Yeltsin appointed and fired three prime ministers -- Kiriyenko, Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei Stepashin.

He then settled on little-known former security service chief Putin, whom he anointed as his successor when he announced his resignation on New Year's Eve.

Turkey suspends over 500 military staff over coup bid
Istanbul (AFP) Oct 5, 2016 - Turkey has suspended more than 500 military personnel, mostly officers, from the air force and navy for suspected ties to the US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen who is blamed for the botched coup, local media reported on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of people have already been arrested or lost their jobs in the relentless crackdown under the state of emergency declared in the wake of the July 15 attempted coup.

A total of 113 personnel from the navy, and 427 from the air force have been temporarily suspended as part of an investigation into the group led by Gulen, Defence Minister Fikri Isik was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.

He said 368 of the suspended personnel were officers.

In total, 3,699 military personnel have been dismissed from the Turkish armed forces in the wake of the coup, the minister added. Half Turkey's contingent of generals from before the coup have either been arrested or dismissed.

The announcement comes a day after Turkey suspended 12,801 police officers from duty -- 2,523 of them police chiefs.

Turkish officials say a suspension is a "precautionary measure" intended to stop suspects from interfering with the official investigation, adding that suspended personnel receive two thirds of their salary.

Turkey has launched a vast crackdown on plotters of the attempt to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power.

Some 32,000 suspects had been remanded in custody so far, according to government figures.

Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating the July 15 coup plot at the helm of a group Ankara calls Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO).

Gulen and his supporters deny the claims, saying he merely runs a peaceful organisation called Hizmet (Service).