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Cossacks beat up anti-corruption leader Alexey Navalny and others as police are slow to intervene

Source: Kira Yarmysh

Earlier today at an airport in Anapa, a city on the Black Sea coast, a group of men dressed in Cossack army uniforms attacked the opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his colleagues from the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).

Artem Torchinsky, the foundation's project coordinator, was injured in the assault, suffering a blow to the head, according to Navalny's spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh. “He's lying on the ground,” she tweeted. “He's been struck in the temple.”

“Navalny and the FBK were attacked at Anapa Airport. They beat Artem Torchinsky, he's lying on the ground, he's been struck in the temple,” writes Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh.
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Navalny says there were nearly 30 assailants. “And somehow there were only two police officers at the whole airport,” he said.

The news website Rus2web released video footage of the attack, also capturing the blow to Torchinsky's head.

Police officers only intervened after Artem Torchinsky fell to the ground and was being kicked, Yarmysh said, also noting that the attackers were recording everything on video cameras.