Russian journalist Elena Milashina, center, with Michelle Obama, then First Lady, and John Kerry, then Secretary of State, in 2013. Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
A Russian investigative journalist and a lawyer were badly beaten Tuesday in the southern Russian region of Chechnya in an attack that was notable for its brutality in a country used to constant restrictions on freedom of expression.
Elena Milashina, a Novaya Gazeta journalist who exposed the torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya, was in the Chechen capital of Grozny to cover the trial of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of exiled opposition activists, according to the newspaper. According to Novaya Gazeta, Ms Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov, who is representing Ms Musayeva, were blocked by cars as they drove through the city.
Masked men beat them with clubs, then took their phones away and asked them to unlock them, the newspaper said in a statement. Equipment and documents were also destroyed.
Ms Milashina suffered brain injuries, her fingers were broken and she repeatedly lost consciousness, the statement said. The attackers also doused her with liquid iodine, apparently in an attempt to prevent her from appearing in public. Mr Nemov was said to have been stabbed in the leg.
A photo released by the newspaper with Ms Milashina’s permission showed the journalist sitting on a stretcher in Grozny, hands bound to the wrists and most of her hair shaved off.
The Committee Against Torture on Tuesday released a photo of Elena Milashina covered with liquid iodine in a Grozny hospital. Photo credit: The Committee Against Torture, via Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
“It was a classic kidnapping,” Ms Milashina said from the stretcher in a short video posted to social media. “Only that something like that hasn’t happened in a long time.”
Another video showed Ms Milashina passing out in a hospital corridor in the neighboring region of North Ossetia after being evacuated from Chechnya.
The Reporters Without Borders group, which campaigns for freedom of the press and prosecutes violence against journalists, called on Tuesday it was “appalled at the brutal attack” on Ms Milashina. Six journalists from Novaya Gazeta, an independent news agency, have been killed in its three decades of existence. The publication’s editor, Dmitri A. Muratov, received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The newspaper’s publication in Russia was suspended under wartime censorship laws after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but some of its reporters continued to work in exile.
In early 2022, Ms Musayeva was taken from her apartment building in central Russia, pushed into a black SUV and taken to Chechnya. Ms Musayeva’s kidnapping was widely seen as part of a manhunt for two of her sons, Abubakar and Ibragim Yangulbayev, prominent government critics who had infuriated Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s autocratic leader.
Mr Kadyrov had previously called Ms Milashina a “terrorist accomplice” for her reporting on the Yangulbayev family.
The severity of the beating, for which authorities did not name a suspect, sparked a rare reaction from Russian officials.
A senior MP for the ruling United Russia party, Andrei Klishas, called for an investigation, and the Kremlin said the government’s human rights ombudsman had contacted prosecutors about the attack.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov added that President Vladimir V. Putin had been informed of Ms. Milashina’s status. “We are talking about a very serious attack that requires very vigorous measures,” he said in his daily press conference on Tuesday.
Mr. Peskov’s rare recognition of this case of human rights abuses in Russia demonstrates the complexity of the government’s relationship with Mr. Kadyrov.
Mr Putin has long relied on the Chechen leader’s rule to keep the troubled, predominantly Muslim region in check. Mr Kadyrov has also become a key Kremlin ally in Ukraine, sending thousands of Chechen paramilitaries into Russian-held territories there.
However, ultra-nationalist factions in alliance with Mr Putin have hinted that the Kremlin has handed over security in Chechnya to Mr Kadyrov and his forces, viewing this as a sign of weakness.
Milana Mazaeva contributed to the coverage.
— Victoria Kim and Anatoly Kurmanaev
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