Journalist and lawyer 'beaten with clubs' by masked attackers in Russia's Chechnya province

Masked assailants in the Russian province of Chechnya attacked and brutally beat a prominent investigative reporter and a lawyer, an assault that highlighted a violent pattern of rampant human rights abuses in the region.

Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina and lawyer Alexander Nemov were attacked soon after they arrived in Chechnya to attend the trial of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of two local activists who have challenged Chechen authorities.

Just outside the airport, their vehicle was blocked by several cars and they were attacked by a dozen unidentified masked attackers who beat them with clubs, put guns to their heads, and broke their equipment.

Her employer said Ms Milashina sustained a concussion and had several fingers broken, but medics later determined her fingers weren’t fractured. Meanwhile, Mr Nemov had a deep cut on his leg.

They were taken to a hospital in Chechnya’s main city, Grozny, and later to Beslan in the nearby region of North Ossetia. The newspaper said Ms Milashina repeatedly lost consciousness.

Speaking from a hospital bed in a video, Ms Milashina said the attack looked like a “classic abduction”.

“They threw the driver out of the car, got in, bent our heads down, tied my hands, forced me down to my knees and put a gun to my head,” she said, adding that the assailants were visibly nervous and had trouble tying her hands.

A photo from a hospital showed her talking over the phone, her face covered by green antiseptic the attackers doused on her.

She had multiple bruises on her head, which had been shaved clean by the assailants.

Officials are said to be considering their medical evacuation to Moscow.

In a later interview with Russian rights group Team Against Torture, which works in Chechnya and other regions, Ms Milashina recalled the assailants telling Mr Nemov: "You are defending too many people here. There is no need to defend anyone here.”

Ms Milashina said the assailants threatened to cut her fingers if she refused to give a password to unlock her phone and then beat her on her fingers with a plastic tube.

“It was very painful. It felt like a burn,” she said.

The attackers grabbed their equipment but didn’t touch cash and other valuables, Ms Milashina said.

Mr Nemov said the attackers threatened to kill him and told him to plead for mercy as they put a pistol to his head.

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Ms Milashina said Mr Nemov believed that they may have been shadowed since they boarded their Chechnya-bound flight in Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed about the incident.

Mr Peskov added that “it was a very serious assault that warrants energetic measures” from law enforcement agencies.

Other Russian agencies, including the human rights ombudsperson, condemned the attack and called for an investigation.

Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee, the country’s top state criminal investigation agency, ordered a probe into the attack.

Chechnya’s Moscow-backed strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has branded Ms Milashina a “terrorist” in the past, said the regional authorities had launched an investigation and would track down the attackers.

The strong statements and a quick response from Russian authorities contrasted with a muted official reaction to previous attacks on Ms Milashina, and other journalists and human rights activists in Chechnya.

Ms Milashina has long exposed human rights violations in Chechnya and has faced threats, intimidation and attacks.

In 2020, she and a lawyer accompanying her were beaten by a dozen people in the lobby of their hotel.

Last year, she temporarily left Russia after she was threatened by Chechen authorities.

She has won widespread acclaim for her investigative reporting, which included exposing the torture and killings of gay people in Chechnya and other abuses by feared Chechen paramilitary forces.

In 2013, Ms Milashina received an International Women of Courage Award from the US Department of State.

Amnesty International strongly condemned Tuesday’s attack on Ms Milashina and Mr Nemov and urged Russian authorities to track down the assailants.

“This callous crime exemplifies the extreme dangers that those who fight injustice and defend human rights face in a context of open hostility from the authorities and total impunity for perpetrators,” Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said in a statement.

Hours after Tuesday’s attack, a court in Grozny sentenced Zarema Musayeva to five-and-a-half years in prison on charges of insulting and violently resisting police, an accusation that rights groups have rejected as trumped up.

Ms Musayeva had been in custody in Grozny since Chechen security forces grabbed her from her home in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod and drove her to Chechnya in January 2022.

Her husband, a former judge, and her two activist sons have left Chechnya. Mr Kadyrov has accused the Musayev family of having terrorist links and said they should be imprisoned or killed if they offered resistance.

Despite Tuesday’s attack, Ms Milashina vowed to travel again to Chechnya to attend Ms Musayeva’s appeal hearing.

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