According to his own account, Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov was attacked on a train by an unknown perpetrator who poured red paint over him.
The liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a photo of its editor-in-chief on Thursday, showing his face, upper body and arms covered in red oil paint.
"My eyes are burning terribly," Muratov wrote on Twitter. There was initially no reaction from the Russian authorities.
The 60-year-old was on the Moscow-Samara train when he was attacked by a man. He shouted: "Muratov, take this for our boys," the journalist continued. He added that there was a smell of the oil paint on the train and the departure was delayed.
"I'm trying to wash it off," Muratov reported. The concrete background of the attack was unclear. Muratov also showed his sleeping car compartment splashed with red paint. Presumably, there was a connection with Russia's war in Ukraine, in which many soldiers have already died.
Journalists critical of the government are repeatedly the target of attacks in Russia. At the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is run by Muratov, female employees have also been murdered, such as the journalists Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, who died from gunshots.
Muratov had always stressed that he would not be intimidated.
He had recently temporarily suspended publication of the newspaper due to pressure from Russian authorities until the war in Ukraine was over. Muratov had publicly criticized President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine.
The newspaper had refrained from writing about a "war" after the enactment of a new law restricting press freedom and freedom of expression in Russia. The word is outlawed in Russia in connection with the invasion of Ukraine.
However, Novaya Gazeta has recently published major reports on the suffering of the people in the course of the war.
