Moscow bus chaos: 87‑year-old beaten over Wagner comment

The media circulated a recording showing two bus passengers in Moscow attacking an elderly man and forcibly dragging him onto the street because they believed the 87-year-old had called mercenaries from the Wagner Group killers. The senior citizen was beaten, but the perpetrators were quickly arrested and charged with hooliganism.

RIA Novosti reported that in Moscow, criminal proceedings were initiated for hooliganism against two men who attacked 87-year-old retiree Dmitry Grinchy on a bus on August 9. No details were provided about the detainees. However, it is known that the 87-year-old has already been questioned as a victim.

In the recording that surfaced online, two men started insulting the retiree, calling him a "fascist" after the bus passed the monument of the Wagner PMC mercenaries. The perpetrators thought they heard the elderly man call the Wagnerites murderers.

They forcibly pushed him out of the bus, twisting his hands, and handed him over to an on-duty traffic police officer. In the recording, one of the men is seen hitting the 87-year-old in the chest. One of the bus passengers tried to intervene but was unsuccessful.

In the end, the police arrested both the attackers and the retiree. At the police station, the men who started the fight filed a complaint against him. However, the 87-year-old was eventually released without a report being filed.

The retiree recounted to his lawyer, Oskar Cherdzyov, that he "was calmly riding the bus to the clinic when two individuals, father and son, started hitting him with their fists." The 87-year-old maintains that he did not insult anyone and  was only mentioning how in 1937 his relatives were shot.

The retiree's father, Pavel Grinchy, worked as head of the planning department of the Civil Air Fleet. During a business trip to Khabarovsk, he was arrested, accused of espionage for Japan, and executed in 1938. After the father's arrest, Dmitry Grinchy remained in Moscow with his mother, hiding from potential arrest.

Dmitry himself only learned his real name when he was 15. He later found out that his father had been declared a "public enemy." He recounted his memories as part of the "My Gulag" project, carried out by the Gulag History Museum.

The 87-year-old does not understand why he was attacked. He filed a complaint against the attackers, claiming he was injured due to hooligan motives. As he says, his back hurts after the attack. His lawyer advised him to undergo medical examinations and a thorough medical evaluation.

I simply regret having to be born in a country where people are not considered people. Decent people, -  the retiree sadly told journalist Ilia Azar from "Novaya Gazeta".