A British sportscaster for Russia Today television was in a hospital with head injuries Tuesday after being robbed.

Neil Harvey, 32, was robbed by unidentified assailants near the Orekhovo metro station in southern Moscow at about 12:30 a.m. Friday after leaving a friend's apartment, he said by telephone.

The assailants struck him on the head around 20 times and took some cash from him, said Harvey, who has worked for the state-funded English-language channel since 2005.

"I saw a mirror and couldn't recognize myself," he said, speaking from his hospital bed. "My head was twice as large as it normally is."

Doctors have told him that he needs to remain hospitalized for at least three weeks, he said.

Nikolai Malukhin, a spokesman for Russia Today, said the attack was an ordinary robbery. "It was not connected to his work," Malukhin said.