On April 7, the editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and a Kremlin critic was attacked with acetone-laced red paint. According to various reports in the US media, the US intelligence community believes the Russian government was behind a chemical attack on a major Kremlin opponent and Nobel Peace Prize winner in April.
Dmitry Muratov, the editor of the investigative weekly Novaya Gazeta, said that he was attacked and sprayed with acetone-laced red paint on a train from Moscow to Samara in April.
“This is for you from our boys,” he claims the attacker stated.
Muratov at the time tweeted photos of his face, chest, and hands coated in red oil paint, claiming that the acetone had badly burned his eyes.
According to the Washington Post, a US official informed reporters on Thursday that “Russian intelligence engineered the April 7 attack on Novaya Gazeta’s editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, in which he was sprayed with red paint containing acetone.”
The spokesperson did not elaborate on how the decision was reached.
Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his work at Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper recognized for its investigations of Russian corruption and human rights violations. Since the 1990s, six of its contributors have been slain.
Muratov foresaw the possibility of a conflict in Ukraine during his acceptance speech, as Russia continued to build up troops around the border at the time.
“A war between Russia and Ukraine is no longer unthinkable in the minds of certain lunatic geopoliticians,” he warned.
Muratov was hailed by the Kremlin at the time, who described him as a “brilliant” and “brave” journalist.
Muratov said in March that he will donate his Nobel Peace Prize medal to help Ukrainian migrants.
Shortly after, the newspaper stated that its online and print operations will be suspended until the end of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine.
Source: Aljazeera
