MOSCOW – A Russian journalist who was put into a coma after a stabbing attack by a man who targeted her thanked supporters Monday in her first statement from the hospital.
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Tatyana Felgenhauer, a top host and deputy editor-in-chief at Ekho Moskvy, Russia’s only independent news radio station, was stabbed in the throat last week. She underwent surgery and is still in the hospital.
Investigators have identified the assailant as 48-year-old Boris Grits who holds Russian and Israeli citizenship. He is under arrest. The station says he attacked its security guard then went up to a higher floor to directly target Felgenhauer.
In her first statement since the attack, Felgenhauer thanked colleagues, family and friends Monday and said “you have to fight for your life.”
The journalist recalled how a stranger who was visiting the station stayed with her while a colleague went to call for help.
“That woman didn’t walk away,” Felgenhauer said. “She helped to press on the wounds on my throat because I had no energy left and I was beginning to choke on blood.”
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Felgenhauer’s statement came a day after Russia’s major state television station put out a 13-minute clip attacking Ekho Moskvy, claiming the station had provoked the attack.
Rossiya 24’s Dmitry Kiselyov, whose station aired a documentary two weeks before the attack accusing Felgenhauer and her colleagues of working against Russia, on his Sunday show described the attacker as “a typical Ekho Moskvy fan.”
Ekho Moskvy’s editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov said last week that he had to evacuate another host, Ksenia Larina, because of security concerns. Another senior editor at Ekho confirmed on Monday that Larina had fled Russia.
Kiselyov, who is also a senior executive at the state-owned TV company that runs Rossiya 24, dismissed Venediktov’s concerns as “persecutory delusion” and insisted that his channel never “called (Larina) a criminal or urged to bar her from the profession.”
