Queen Elizabeth II has granted Russian-British media mogul Yevgeny Lebedev the title of “Baron of Hampton and Siberia,” according to the British government’s official journal of record The Gazette.
The British monarch conferred a lifetime peerage to Lebedev, 40, after his longtime friend Prime Minister Boris Johnson nominated him in July. Reports suggested that Lebedev’s introduction into the House of Lords met a delay over his request to include “Moscow” in his title and the need for London to make a formal request to the Russian government.
According to the Gazette, the extravagant businessman's full title will be “Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation” when he enters the House of Lords.
The order was issued last Thursday.
Lebedev, the owner of Britain’s Independent and Evening Standard newspapers, is the son of ex-KGB agent turned business tycoon Alexander Lebedev, who also owns the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper in Russia.
Yevgeny Lebedev is due to be sworn in as the first Russian member of the House of Lords next month and will sit as a crossbench peer, a designation that holds no party affiliation, according to the Independent and Evening Standard.
“Mr. Lebedev was ennobled for his services to the media industry and his philanthropic work,” they wrote, pointing to his campaigns that raised more than $100 million for charities dedicated to preserving wildlife and helping feed vulnerable people.
The senior Lebedev was reportedly one of the figures investigated as part of the British Parliament’s intelligence committee report on alleged Kremlin interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. The report concluded that British government and intelligence agencies failed to investigate reports of Russian interference.
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