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Tycoon Lebedev says 'shadowy forces' want to force him out of Russia

© RIA Novosti . Ilya Pitalev / Go to the mediabankRussian oligarch Alexander Lebedev
Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev - Sputnik International
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Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev - the owner of the U.K.'s Independent and Evening Standard newspapers - has claimed a campaign has been launched in Russia to force him leave the country.

Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev - the owner of the U.K.'s Independent and Evening Standard newspapers - has claimed a campaign has been launched in Russia to force him leave the country.

Lebedev said in an interview with the Mail on Sunday that he had received several threats in the past two years from "shadowy forces" inside Russia, including one from the Federal Security Service (FSB), warning him to leave the country to avoid being killed.

Last week, law enforcement officers wearing masks raided the Moscow bank belonging to Lebedev, which was described by the Moscow police chief as "part of a previously initiated criminal case." Lebedev, who has not been named as a suspect in that case, said the raid was yet another warning.

"They were saying - do not cross the line," Lebedev, who is also a co-owner of Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the Aeroflot airline, told the newspaper.

"They did not arrest me because it was a demonstration. It is like the Cosa Nostra - they send you a rotten fish wrapped in some paper," the oligarch said.

A close friend of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, Lebedev worked for the Soviet Union's secret services in the London embassy in 1987-1991. The 50-year-old oligarch, whose wealth is estimated by Forbes at $2 billion, has criticized the state of modern Russia, especially its wide-spread corruption, but is not known to have made any public statements against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or President Dmitry Medvedev.

LONDON, November 8 (RIA Novosti)

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