Russian journalist shows injuries after attack in Chechnya

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Yelena Milashina after the attack: According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, she is in a Moscow hospital

Photograph:

Novaya Gazeta

According to her own statements, the Russian investigative journalist Yelena Milashina was beaten up with polypropylene pipes in Chechnya. She knows this so well because she has reported on it herself.

The pipes are used for pressure pipes in the trades. And in Chechnya, according to Milashina, as a weapon for beating up prisoners. "It really hurts, it feels like a burn," she told the NGO Team Against Torture.

The attack has left its mark, as images from the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, for which Milashina works, now show. Her body is covered with hematomas on it, her hands are bandaged.

According to a report in the newspaper, she suffered up to 14 fractures in her hands, as well as several bruises and a head injury. In the photos, Milashina can be seen in a hospital in Moscow. She is clearly conscious and stable.

In the evening, for example, the Tass news agency reported that the Russian Investigative Committee had initiated criminal proceedings after the attack. The influential authority reports directly to the president. On Tuesday, the Kremlin announced that Vladimir Putin would be personally informed about the incident.

Taxi stopped on the way to Grozny

The attack had occurred on Tuesday morning. Milashina had traveled to Chechnya with lawyer Alexander Nemov to attend a verdict. Milashina had reported several times on the trial of Sarema Musaeva, the wife of a former judge who was abducted from the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod to Grozny last year. Nemov is their official lawyer.

Her taxi was forced to stop by men, Milashina said. "They dragged us into a ravine and started beating us. There were at least ten or twelve of them."

The attackers searched the luggage and demanded the password to Milashina's mobile phone. "When they did, they had already shaved my head and put green paint in my eyes, I couldn't see anything and I couldn't enter the password." The men apparently threatened several times to cut off the fingers of their victims. "They were in a hurry, and they knew what they wanted."

The journalist has been researching in Chechnya for years. She had already been threatened with death by Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov in 2020. Previously, she had reported critically on the brutal treatment of the population in the corona pandemic.

HBA/HEB