After spending nine days in a medically-induced coma andundergoing multiple operations, Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin is thankfully on his way to a strong recovery. After a brutal beating on November 6 that left him with skull fractures, broken shins and a set of maimed fingers, Kashin is well enough to walk on crutches and joke about flirting with his nurses in Moscow Hospital No. 36.

In an interview with television personality Leonid Parfenov, Kashin said he has no idea who ordered his beating, that his assailants said nothing during the attack, and that a variety of the topics of his articles could have been motivating factors. But which one it was – the Khimki Forest, Kremlin-sponsored youth groups, or insulted Russian governors – Kashin couldn’t say. An investigation under the supervision of prosecutor general is still ongoing.

In his first article since the attack, Oleg Kashin reveals that, far ...

The international human rights organization Amnesty International is calling for an investigation of an attack on rights advocate Bakhrom Khamroev, Ekho Mosvky reports.

Khamroev, a member of the Russian civil rights society Memorial, was attacked in Moscow on December 7.

According to Interfax, the rights advocate was visiting an acquaintance – a Russian citizen who emigrated from Kyrgyzstan – who had called Khamroev and complained that armed men had broken into his apartment.

"Bakhrom came out to the place. They didn’t let him in the apartment, they forced him to leave the entrance,” said Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial. "Then a man came out of a microbus parked nearby – we know the number – and asked Bakhrom several questions and suddenly hit him several times on the head. Bakhrom lost consciousness and was hospitalized.”

The leadership of Memorial believes that Khamroev was beaten by ...