A Siberian journalist was attacked and severely beaten by unknown assailants after investigating Ramzan Kadyrov’s infamous fight club, Akhmat MMA.
Appearing on Instagram with a bloodied face and injured arms, Andrei Afanasyev revealed that at least three assailants had attacked him outside his apartment in Blagoveshchensk, a city in the Amur Oblast that forms Russia’s border with China. Afanasyev, who works as a freelancer for Sibir.Realii, a regional affiliate of the U.S.-funded RFE/RL news outlet, claimed that he was beaten with “either a pipe or a piece of rebar” for his reporting on a local chapter of the Chechen dictator’s fight club.