PARIS — When the Russian investor Aleksandr Lebedev took over two British newspapers and named his son, Evgeny, to oversee them, some people on Fleet Street assumed that the younger Mr. Lebedev would simply add “publisher” to the long list of pursuits that occupy the offspring of Russian billionaires in London: restaurateur, hotelier, art collector, philanthropist, fashionista and dater of famous actresses, to name just a few in his case.

Instead, Evgeny Lebedev appears to have embraced the job of running The Evening Standard and The Independent with considerable commitment. The decisions he has made at both papers, in consultation with their managers and his father, have turned around the fortunes of The Standard and given The Independent the hope of a brighter future.

When The Independent introduced this autumn a spinoff newspaper called i, a design-led tabloid aimed at young, urban readers, it was Evgeny Lebedev who held up the first copy off the presses, commemorating the first introduction of a major new newspaper in Britain in a quarter-century.

“That gave me a huge amount of pride,” he said by telephone. “Having grown up in a country that didn’t have basic freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of the press — and that are still, in many ways, limited — it is very important to be part of something in this country that stands up for those things.”