The Armenian victim of a knife attack in northern Moscow on Wednesday died of his wounds in a hospital early Thursday, police said.

Passers-by found the 20-year-old student at Moscow State Automobile and Road Technical University lying beside Bolshaya Akademicheskaya Ulitsa at about 9:20 p.m., Northern Administrative District police spokeswoman Yekaterina Malyugina said.

"We have no idea who attacked, or why they attacked," Malyugina said. "We are examining all possible motives."

She declined to give the victim's name, which Interfax reported as Vladimir Karamzhyan, citing unidentified police sources.

She said the victim, who had been stabbed five times in the upper torso, was attacked near his home, on Ulitsa Priorova, which runs perpendicular to Bolshaya Akademicheskaya, and that surgeons at City Hospital No. 50 had battled for hours Wednesday to save him.

Russian media sources provided differing accounts of the attack. Interfax reported that five assailants aged 12 to 18 attacked Karamzhyan as he was walking with a young woman past No. 20 Bolshaya Akademicheskaya Ulitsa.

Regnum.ru reported that there were as many as 20 attackers.

The university could not be reached for comment Thursday.