Media mogul Evgeny Lebedev has insisted he is “not some agent of Russia” after allegations that Boris Johnson intervened to overturn security assessments that he was a risk before making him a peer.
Lord Lebedev, who owns the Evening Standard, admitted that his father, Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, had been a KGB officer a “long time ago”, but denied being “a security risk to this country”.
It comes amid scrutiny over his peerage, and as the UK hit Kremlin-linked oligarchs with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
The Sunday Times reported that the damning assessment of the Moscow-born businessman was withdrawn by the security services after the Prime Minister personally intervened.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee to investigate the “matter of national security”.
Lord Lebedev wrote: “At the moment many with Russian roots are under scrutiny, including myself.
“I understand the reason for this as it is inevitable when events of such magnitude occur and the world order as we have known it in recent decades suddenly gets torn up.
“But I am not a security risk to this country, which I love. My father a long time ago was a foreign intelligence agent of the KGB, but I am not some agent of Russia.
“I may have a Russian name but that makes me no less a committed or proud British citizen than anyone else in this country of ours.
“Being Russian does not automatically make one an enemy of the state, and it is crucial we do not descend into Russiaphobia, like any other phobia, bigotry or discrimination.”
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The crossbench peer pointed to his use of the Standard’s front page, on which he appealed last week for Vladimir Putin to end his invasion, to show he is a critic of the war.
He said he was publishing his latest “statement from the proprietor” because “accusations are coming from credible media outfits who are posing incredible questions to me so I feel I have no option but to respond”.
The Prime Minister said it would “obviously be extraordinary” if the security services had deemed Lord Lebedev a risk and the Prime Minister had intervened to ensure the peerage was granted.
However, asked about the allegations, Mr Johnson told reporters on Monday: “That is simply incorrect… It suits Putin’s agenda to try to characterise this as a struggle between the West and Russia.
“It suits his agenda to say that the UK, that we in Nato countries, are anti-Russia, European countries are now anti-Russian.
“It’s very, very, very important that we get the message over that we’re not anti-Russian, we’re not against Russians. Our quarrel is simply with the regime and the aggression of Vladimir Putin.”
However, Mr Johnson sidestepped a question about whether he met Lord Lebedev in March 2020, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, to discuss the peerage.
Lord Lebedev was given a peerage in July 2020, for philanthropy and services to the media, after being nominated by Mr Johnson.