HE IS a maverick figure in Russian business and politics, but Alexander Lebedev, although he worked as a KGB spy in London in the 1980s, is not an obvious member of the Siloviki — the group of security services hardliners who dominate the Russian Government.

Silovik politicians such as Igor Sechin, the Kremlin deputy chief of staff and chairman of Rosneft, tend to push for greater state control of the economy. Mr Lebedev, by contrast, argues that the State needs to lessen its role in the economy.

Siloviki tend to be publicity-shy — only a handful of photographs of Mr Sechin are known to exist. Mr Lebedev, by contrast, is often seen around Moscow in his leather jacket and even tried to have his own television show. He moves easily in British high society, which he says he learnt to do through his KGB training.

Siloviki are not generally supporters of a free press or of human rights groups. Mr Lebedev, by contrast, teamed up this summer with Mikhail Gorbachev, his friend and mentor, to buy a stake in the vibrantly independent Novaya Gazeta, an investigative newspaper for which the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya worked.

Some in Moscow say that Mr Lebedev “went native” while working as a spy in London, developing a taste for English manners and ideas. He is a member of a Moscow club called the London Spies, made up of former espionage agents who were based in London, who meet occasionally to drink Scotch and remember the good old days.

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