No Anti-Wagner Words on the Bus

On August 9, two men attacked an 87-year-old man on a Moscow bus after he allegedly said "Killers of women and children!" when the bus was passing a Wagner Group monument. The attackers restrained the retiree and handed him over to the police.

The retiree, Dmitry Grinchy, was standing on the 528 bus when it passed by a memorial to the Wagner Group on Varvarska Street. Then, a middle-aged man with brown hair and glasses began shouting "Get out, b---, f------ fascist, f---." Another man with a balding head and a dark mustache punched Grinchy in the stomach and twisted his arm. A passenger attempted to intervene, but was pushed out with "Move away, woman."

When the bus doors opened near the Lubyanka metro station, the two men dragged the senior citizen to the traffic police by the subway entrance. In a video widely shared on social media, Grinchy can be seen walking in a bent position with his legs tangled together. The attackers told police the senior was cursing at the Wagner Group. Meanwhile, the victim complained about pain in his head and ears.

Security forces took Grinchy to the Kitay-Gorod police station and transferred him to the Basmanny precinct, where the attackers wrote a statement against the victim. The retiree was released soon after.

Grinchy filed a counterclaim for hooliganism, beatings, and the loss of a hearing aid worth R100,000 ($1,152 USD). Journalist Sergey Parkhomenko said one of his readers identified one of the attackers as the lawyer Alexander Golovnin. The attackers told police they were father and son.

In 2017, Grinchy told the Moy GULAG (My GULAG) project that his father was accused of spying for Japan and was executed in 1938. However, new discoveries show that Grinchy's father survived and was released in 1966.