In Chechnya, masked men beat Novaya Gazeta journalist Yelena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov. The criminals broke Milasha's fingers, demanding to know the password to the phone, and shaved the woman's head. Nemov was stabbed in the leg.
In the hospital, the Chechen Ombudsman Mansur Soltaev visited the journalist and the lawyer, and Tatyana Moskalkova, the Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, called Milashina on the phone. According to the Team Against Torture, Moskalkova also spoke with the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, after which he ordered Milashina and Nemov to be transported from Grozny to Beslan (North Ossetia). They will be taken in an ambulance, accompanied by Soltaev. Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that he was informed about the incident.
Government officials and Russian propagandists reacted to the attack, many of whom demand that the attackers be found and punished in order to prove that Russia is a state of law.
Former RT employee Anton Krasovsky
“The attack, and even such a disgusting, some kind of old-fashioned wretched attack on Milashina, is a good reason for Ramzan Akhmatovich to prove that Chechnya is Russia. Find and punish. The only way. Well, any person who writes now, they say – and rightly so, Milashina is an enemy of Russia, signs that Russia's friends are ordinary bandits. Thugs from the forest road. And that Russia should be their country.”
Former VGTRK employee, Moscow City Duma deputy Andrey Medvedev
“From my point of view, she <Milashina> sometimes wrote things that were completely outrageous, Russophobic and extremely – very, very mildly – controversial. <…> But what was done to Milashina is a heinous and disgusting crime. And from the legal point of view. And from the moral side. Beating and humiliating a woman is a special degree of fall.”
Presenter of the Russia 1 TV channel, State Duma deputy Yevgeny Popov
“Today I will send a request to the Prosecutor General of Russia Igor Krasnov. Regardless of political views, I consider attacks on people, journalists, and activists blatant and unacceptable. Grozny is one of the safest cities in the country. This is how it should remain."
Employee of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Alexander Kots
“Now I am looking at photos and videos of a woman with broken fingers, a shaved head, covered in brilliant green. And in this case, I don’t care what Milashina wrote about and how. To justify the beating of a journalist and a woman by her political or ideological position is inherently flawed. So you can go far in justifying crime. <…> For the head of Chechnya and its law enforcement agencies, it should be a matter of honor to find, show and punish those who dishonor the republic. In which, like in the 90s, people are kidnapped and tortured in broad daylight.”
State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein
“Attacks on journalists (regardless of their position) are criminal and unacceptable. The State Duma Committee on Information Policy fully agrees with the UJR <Russian Union of Journalists> and the Human Rights Council <Human Rights Council> in this. We will also send an appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office and the TFR to take this investigation under special control."
Senator Andrei Klishas
"Attacks on a journalist and a lawyer in Chechnya require a tough response from law enforcement agencies."
Ministry of Digital Development, Telecommunications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation
“A journalist, while doing his job, should not be subjected to persecution and torture. We hope that this case will be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators will be punished. Appropriate appeals were sent to law enforcement agencies. For its part, the Ministry of Digital Development will provide the necessary support to the victims: legal, informational, financial.”
Employee of Moskovsky Komsomolets, member of the HRC Eva Merkacheva
“This is the ultimate horror. They beat, cut (with a knife), tortured (broke their fingers), mocked (they shaved their heads, doused them with brilliant green). Men don't do that. That's not how people do it. <…> I hope the authorities realize that one cannot remain silent here and one cannot leave what happened unpunished. And after all, those bandits who created all this hardly understand that this is a diversion against the Chechen people. Many will now associate Chechnya with this. What do you say, Ramzan Akhmatovich?
Party "New People"
“The reaction of the head of any region in such cases should be unequivocal. Urgent assistance to the victims and personal control of justice over everyone who allows himself such crimes on the territory of Russia. The New People are calling on Ramzan Kadyrov to take this situation under his personal control. Permissiveness within the country cannot go unpunished.
Our deputies call for a parliamentary investigation with the inclusion of deputies from Chechnya in the working group.”
Z-propagandist Boris Rozhin
“An extrajudicial reprisal took place over a person serving the information infrastructure of countries hostile to Russia <…> The state should deal with such persons on its own and prevent their functional activities on the territory of the country, within the framework of appropriate procedures. And so, the state’s monopoly on violence and state security is again eroded when some unknown people surface.”
Propagandist Yulia Vityazeva
“According to the 'beaten' and shaved Milashina: I don’t believe it! She is a well-known swindler and a foreign agent. Yes, for many years she tried to spoil the leadership of Chechnya and expose the Chechens as something like universal evil. But no one will get their hands dirty about it there. <…> I tend to think that all this is another attempt to present Chechnya as a 'gangster village' and thereby disperse another custom-made hype from the series 'guard, journalists are beaten in Russia'”.