Semen Gendler is white; he claimed that his skin is changing to black after he was given a new liver from a black man.
The 65-year-old inventor was told by doctors that his only hope was a liver transplant after he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and cancer.
After speaking with contacts in the United States, he arranged to fly there from his home in Krasnodar in the Krasnodar Krai, south-western Russia, to have the operation.
Mr Gendler said: "Russian doctors made it quite clear to me that if I didn't have a liver transplant I would not live.
"I do a lot of business in the US with partners in New York, and I asked them to help me arrange for the operation where if you have enough money it is possible to do it more quickly than in Russia.
"Fortunately I was able to afford the cost of the $500,000 [£325,000] operation, in Russia I would have had to wait too long for a donor."
He said that he had been initially delighted at having the liver of a 38-year-old and added that it had given him a new lease of life.
But he said he thought his former KGB colleague Igor Atamanenko was joking when he noticed that he seemed to be changing colour.
Igor told Russian media: "I noticed that his skin was getting darker. When he told me they had given him the liver of an African-American man, I guess that was probably the reason for the colour change
For his part Gendler also states that his skin is changing colour but says it doesn't trouble him unduly.
He said that he had never been somebody to go out in the sun much and had always avoided it even after the transplant which meant he didn't believe a suntan was the reason for the change in colour of his skin.
He said: "I could end up much darker than this to be honest, I don't care. The main thing is that the liver works and I am healthy.
MUK.
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