Leading journalists at Russia's main business daily newspaper say they have been forced to quit over an article that predicted the resignation of the speaker of the country's upper house of parliament.

Kommersant's Maxim Ivanov and Ivan Safronov said on Facebook Monday that they were forced to step down because the newspaper's owner, billionaire Alisher Usmanov, was unhappy with the article published last month.

The publication's deputy editor, Gleb Cherkasov, said he and 10 other Kommersant journalists will quit in protest.

In their article, Ivanov and Safronov predicted that upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko will resign soon and be replaced by Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the SVR foreign intelligence service.

Matviyenko and other officials denied the report.