Quote Originally Posted by alexsms View Post
Rumor had it that it was no less than Zhukov's nephew who... (и так далее)
Hmmm, so would it be possible to use a construction like "слушок, что не кто йной, как племянник..." instead?

Quote Originally Posted by alexsms View Post
PS. I am not a native speaker


Holy cow! Is your native language another Slavic one? Or have you been living in Russia for many years now?

P.S. Oh, wait... I guess I misunderstood! You were saying that you're not a native speaker of English, and weren't 100% sure about whether the English construction sounded colloquial? In any case, "it was no less than" or "it was none other than" both sound totally okay to me.