Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov was attacked on a train by a person who attacked him with red paint, according to his newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
“An unknown assailant attacked the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and the winner of the Nobel Prize in a train car,” the independent newspaper Telegram reported. “He threw red oil-based paint mixed with acetone into the cabin. He shouted, ‘Muratov, this is for our boys,'” the newspaper quoted Muratov as saying.
“My eyes are burning terribly. I will try to wash them,” Muratov said after the attack on a train traveling from Moscow to the southeastern city of Samara. The report is accompanied by two photos of Muratov – one shows that he is in the toilet of the train, and his head, torso and arms are covered with red substance. The second photo shows the wagon flooded with a significant amount of red liquid.
“Muratov received first aid and got on the train to see his mother … We are looking for the criminal who did it,” Kiril Martinov, Muratov’s former deputy, wrote on Twitter.
Martinov added that the attack could have seriously damaged Muratov’s eyesight. Last month, Novaya Gazeta said it was suspending paper and online publishing in Russia until the conflict in Ukraine ended.
Following the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow significantly tightened its control over the independent media and passed legislation providing harsh sentences for anyone who criticized military intervention. The newspaper’s foreign-based reporters said they were launching a new edition on their own initiative, Novaya Gazeta. Evropa, in several languages, edited by Martinov.
