An 87-year-old pensioner was assaulted on a Moscow bus for his alleged criticism of the Wagner mercenary group, the independent rights project OVD-Info reported Friday, citing an eyewitness and the veteran’s lawyer.
Dmitry Grinchiy was attacked by two fellow passengers who claimed he called Wagner fighters “murderers” as their bus passed a memorial to the mercenary group, OVD-Info said.
Video of the incident shows two men aggressively twisting Grinchiy’s arms, shouting and cursing at him, and trying to drag him off the bus to “hand him over” to the police.
All three men were detained following the incident.
Grinchiy was later released without charges and filed a complaint regarding the assault.
The Wagner memorial was erected in central Moscow last year following the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash just two months after he launched a stunning mutiny against Russia’s military leadership for its handling of the war in Ukraine.
Wagner mercenaries, who have operated in conflict zones in Ukraine, Syria and several African countries, have been accused of severe human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture.
Grinchiy’s father, Pavel Grinchiy, was executed on espionage charges in 1938 during Stalin’s Great Terror.
Grinchiy later told journalist Ilya Azar that he “didn’t disgrace anyone” on the bus, but “was simply remembering that in ’37 all my relatives were shot.”
“I just regret that I had to be born in a country where people are not considered people. Decent people,” he told Azar.
Law enforcement authorities later opened a criminal hooliganism case against the two men who forcibly removed Grinchiy from the bus, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing an unidentified source.
