Beaten Russian Journalist Gives First Account Of Attack Since Coma

Oleg Kashin, a Russian political journalist, says the attack on him was connected to his reporting on Khimki forest.

A Russian journalist who was nearly beaten to death by unknown assailants has given an account of the attack for the first time.

Investigators told the news agency Interfax on November 17 that Oleg Kashin said the attack was connected to his reporting on the Khimki forest, north of Moscow, which was due to be razed to make way for a motorway in a controversial infrastructure project.

Kashin, a 30-year-old political reporter for the business daily "Kommersant," was attacked outside his Moscow home on November 6, leaving him with two broken legs, a broken jaw, and internal injuries.

Doctors afterwards put him an artificial coma from which he awoke last week.

compiled from agency reports