Amid heightened women’s activism, police open criminal case to investigate beating and harassment in central Moscow

The Moscow police have initiated a criminal case to investigate an incident in which two men beat and harassed a woman in central Moscow on the night of June 27. The case comes amid a wave of heightened advocacy surrounding violence against women following the final arraignment of the Khachaturyan sisters, who killed their father to escape years of constant abuse.

Today’s case was opened after a woman named Agniya Galdanova posted on Facebook detailing an incident that took place on Karetny Ryad. She said two unfamiliar men approached her and asked how much money she would take to have sex with them. “I told them to go to hell,” she wrote, “and that got me a fist to the face. And then another to the head.” After the men had caused what doctors later diagnosed as multiple brain injuries, they walked away and, according to Galdanova, “said I was putting the nation to shame.” Police indicated that they were working to identify the perpetrators of the assault.