MOSCOW, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A Russian reporter who was brutally attacked Nov. 6 is improving and is now off a respirator, a Moscow hospital source said Monday.
Oleg Kashin of the Kommersant newspaper was severely beaten by unidentified assailants outside his Moscow home. He suffered head and leg wounds and was put into an induced coma.
"He was removed from a respirator, and his condition is getting better," the source told RIA Novosti, but Kashin remains in intensive care.
Kashin is believed to have been targeted in retaliation for his writing on touchy subjects, including plans to build a road from Moscow to St. Petersburg through the centuries-old Khimki forest. President Dmitry Medvedev has put the plan on hold.
Another opponent of the road, Konstantin Fetisov, was attacked in Khimki days before Kashin's beating.
Two years ago, Mikhail Beketov, a local newspaper editor, was nearly killed outside his home in Khimki for speaking out against the road. The attack on Kashin followed a similar pattern.
