Moscow journalist stabbed by Israeli moved to intensive care

Tatyana Felgenhauer, top host at Russia’s only independent news radio station, operated on after attack by Boris Grits

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA 24 October 2017, 2:55 pm

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An undated handout photo released by Ekho Moskvy radio station shows journalist Tatyana Felgenhauer. (Vitaly Ruvinsky, Ekho Moskvy photo via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — A well-known Russian radio journalist who was stabbed in the throat by an attacker has been operated on and transferred to an intensive care unit, the Ekho Moskvy radio station said Tuesday.

Tatyana Felgenhauer, a top host and deputy editor-in-chief at Russia’s only independent news radio station, was put into a medically induced coma on Monday after the attack at the station’s studios in central Moscow. It was the latest in a wave of assaults on journalists and activists in recent years.

Most have gone uninvestigated.

CCTV footage released by the station on Tuesday showed the attacker spraying gas into the face of a security guard in the reception area, ducking under the turnstile and running.

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The Investigative Committee has identified the assailant as 48-year-old Boris Grits, who holds Russian and Israeli citizenship. After being apprehended, he told investigators he had been in “telepathic contact with Felgenhauer” for five years. The man was expected to appear in court later Tuesday.

State-owned media have long targeted Ekho Moskvy along with other rare independent media outlets for its critical reporting.

The state television channel Rossiya 24 put out a report two weeks ago that claimed that the station paid for “destabilizing society” ahead of Russia’s presidential election in March.

A man Russian authorities identified as Boris Grits, who reportedly stabbed journalist Tatyana Felgenhauer, was detained in the Ekho Moskvy radio station office in Moscow, Russia, on October 23 2017. (Vitaly Ruvinsky, Ekho Moskvy photo via AP)

Another popular Ekho Moskvy host, Yulia Latynina, fled Russia in September following a suspected arson attack on her car.

Latynina wrote in Tuesday’s edition of Novaya Gazeta that despite the latest assailant’s apparent mental troubles the attack seems to be a logical followup to increasingly militant rhetoric by some Russian officials who have openly described media like Ekho Mosvky as enemies.

“Grits’ mental disorder curiously matches the party line,” Latynina said. “The attack on Felgenhauer falls neatly into the line of numerous attacks on independent journalists and opposition politicians that were met with impunity.”