Intruder stabs host at anti-Putin radio station

A KNIFEMAN burst into a Russian radio station critical of the Putin regime and stabbed a host in the neck yesterday.

Tatyana Felgenhauer, deputy editor at the Ekho Moskvy station, had surgery at a Moscow hospital last night and is in a medically induced coma. Her injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

The attacker sprayed gas in the face of a security guard and stormed up to the 14th floor studios. He was later detained by police.

The stabbing is the latest in a string of assaults on journalists and opposition activists in Russia. In a country where increasingly few media outlets report a diverse range of political views for fear of reprisals, Ekho Moskvy (Moscow Echo) is described as Russia’s last independent news radio station

Its searing criticism of the Kremlin has irked many in the Russian government, with state media describing the station as ‘an arm of the US government’, and staff have previously reported death threats.

Editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov said: ‘The man came here on purpose. He knew where he was going.’ Only last month another Ekho Moskvy presenter, Yulia Latynina, fled Russia after an attempted arson attack on her car.

But Moscow police described the attacker, identified as 48-year-old Boris Grits, as being driven by ‘personal animosity’. Blog entries were released apparently by him claiming Miss Felgenhauer had been stalking him and that the two had a ‘telepathic connection’. Grits had threatened ‘unpleasant’ consequences unless she was stopped.