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Russian Opposition Journalist Latynina’s Home Attacked With Pungent Gas

Yulia Latynina Dmitry Rozhkov / Wikicommons

The family home of prominent opposition journalist Yulia Latynina was attacked by unidentified men on Tuesday night, Latynina has said.

In a column published by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper on Thursday, Latynina said attackers had released a smelly gas into her home through a window.

Latynina said the attack sent two messages: “We know where your parents live,” and “You, Yulia Latynina, are a skunk.”

Eight people, including four elderly people and two children, suffered as a result, she told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

The journalist wrote she was not going to report the incident to police as she did not expect the attackers would be found. “I’m not going to take part in a farce,” she said.

She wrote she believed the attack was perpetrated by the same people who poured a bucket of feces over her on her way to work last August, citing the assaults as examples of a general atmosphere of aggression towards critics of the Kremlin.

A spokesperson for the Moscow police told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency the gas did not pose any health hazard and that they were looking into the incident. 

Latynina is a prominent opposition journalist, who often voices opinions that are critical of the Kremlin on her radio show on Ekho Moskvy radio and in her column at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. She is also a former Moscow Times columnist.

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