Cossacks Clash Violently With Kremlin Opposition Leader and Supporters
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Version 0 of 1. MOSCOW — Men in Cossack fatigues attacked a group of anti-Kremlin activists led by the anti-corruption crusader Aleksei A. Navalny in southern Russia on Tuesday, in a melee that was captured on video and quickly uploaded to Facebook. Mr. Navalny and his associates were returning to Moscow from a hiking trip in southern Russia when a group of men threw bags of milk at them in the entryway to an airport in the Black Sea resort of Anapa. A brawl ensued, with the attackers punching opposition activists and throwing some of them to the ground. Wearing signature Cossack black-and-red fleece hats, the attackers yelled “occupiers” and “get off our land.” Afterward, one of the Cossacks argued on the Govorit Moskva radio station that, the shower of milk notwithstanding, a member of Mr. Navalny’s group had started the fight. A review of the video of the confrontation does seem to back up the claim, with an activist in a red shirt throwing an elbow at an older man. Several police officers arrived on the scene, but seemed unable or unwilling to do much about the situation. After the initial elbow, the activists seemed to get the worst of it, with several of them shown lying on the pavement. “The Cossacks and the police carried out the attacks, but of course it was the authorities who organized them,” Mr. Navalny wrote on Twitter. One activist, Artyom Torchinsky, was injured after being hit in the temple during the brawl. Five others, including Mr. Navalny, suffered minor injuries, said Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh. The police told the Interfax news agency that they were investigating the attack. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, refused to comment, citing a lack of information. Pro-Kremlin groups have repeatedly harassed Mr. Navalny, who played a leading role in mass protests in 2011 against irregularities in voting for Parliament. He has been harassed by the authorities as well, receiving a suspended three-and-a half-year sentence in 2014 for what was widely deemed a politically motivated charge of criminal fraud. In April, conservative activists threw a stinking blue liquid at him. A cake was thrown at him in February in front of his office. Russia is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in September, the first since the contested 2011 vote. |