By TODD VENEZIA

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Last updated: 11:18 am
February 20, 2009
Posted: 1:38 am
February 20, 2009

No one is safe from the housing mess – not even a billionaire Russian oligarch.

Moneybags Muscovite playboy Mikhail Prokhorov has been hit so hard by the worldwide economic downturn that he’s trying to back out of a deal to buy the world’s most expensive mansion on the French Riviera.

Last year, he thought nothing of making a deal to pay $634 million for the Villa Leopolda.

But after losing $8 billion of his $20 billion net worth, Prokhorov is trying to get back his $49 million deposit from current owner Lily Safra.