Unknown assailant hurls grenade at BBC Russia journalists inside bar in Riga, Latvia

Update: Latvian police have announced the arrest of two men who fled the scene in a car. The police believe that the incident was “a personal conflict in the bar” and unrelated to the journalists’ presence.

An unknown assailant attacked a group of BBC Russia journalists at a bar in Riga on Saturday evening, December 23, using a training grenade.

An eyewitness told Novaya Gazeta that a man opened the front door to the bar, looked inside, saw that the establishment was nearly empty except for the journalists, and then hurled a training RGD-5 anti-personnel fragmentation grenade, stunning several people. The assailant fled the scene and jumped into a black BMW. BBC journalists say they were able to record the car’s license plate number, which they have shared with the local police.

The eyewitness told Novaya Gazeta that they believe this was a deliberate attack against the BBC, its journalists, and their reporting, not a random prank. At the time of this writing, there are no reported injuries.