A reporter working for the pro-Kremlin NTV television channel was attacked live on air on Wednesday during annual Paratroopers Day celebrations.
Just moments after Nikita Razvozzhayev began his live broadcast, he was approached by what appeared to be a heavily intoxicated man who was swearing heavily saying:
“We’ll take Ukraine, [expletive].”
When the presenter asked him to be quiet, the man then punched him in the face, saying: “Who are you to talk to me in that way."
The live broadcast promptly cut back to the studio, showing a taken aback anchor.
The incident occurred in Moscow’s Gorky park, where annual Paratroopers Day celebrations are typically held.
Razvozzhayev was describing the paratroopers as heroes in the moments leading up to his being attacked. “No one celebrates their day like them,” he said.
The Moscow branch of the Interior Ministry promptly responded to the incident saying the man who attacked the reporter had never been a member of the Russian Armed Forces.
The attacker has also been detained, the ministry’s press service told the Moskva city news agency.
The man who attacked the reporter was wearing a shirt featuring the emblem of a pro-Russian group involved in the war in Ukraine.
One of the group's leaders, Alexander Zakharchenko, has acted as the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014.
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