Mr Lebedev has also expressed an interest in buying out other struggling newspapers both in the UK and the United States.

BBC: Ex-KGB spy buys UK paper for ?1

Anatoly Chubais, the deputy prime minister, who appears to be on his way out after taking an unseemly book advance from a publisher whose owner has an interest in buying companies Mr Chubais wants to privatise?

ECONOMIST: Russia sounds the alarm