Russian journalist Oleg Kashin names his attackers in 2010 beating

MOSCOW, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Russian journalist Oleg Kashin revealed the names of four men allegedly behind a near fatal attack on him five years ago.

In a post published on his web site, Kashin -- who was then a Kommersant newspaper journalist -- identified Danila Veselov and Vyachaeslav Borisov as the men who beat him with an iron pipe near his Moscow apartment in November 2010, The Moscow Times reported.

The attack left Kashin hospitalized with a fractured skull and damage to his jaw, legs and fingers. This came in the wake of a series of high-profile murders of journalists, which included the unsolved killing of Vladimir Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.

A third guard at the same plant, Mikhail Kavtaskin, had been named as the driver who brought the assailants to the scene, revealed Kashin. The attack was administered by Alexander Gorbunov, the head of the Leninets holding company. Relatives of Pskov Governor Andrei Turchak owned Leninets at the time. Kashin criticized Turchak just two months prior to the assault.

Gorbunov paid the men 3.3 million rubles -- over $100,000 -- for the attack and helped them hide from the authorities in his hometown of Mogilev, Belarus, Kashin told Russian press. Gorbunov was charged with the illegal possession of firearms in a separate investigation. Kashin told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Monday that he neither knew the men personally nor had any problems with them.

The investigation has been extended until December 6.

"I've decided to reveal them these days because there is a risk to set free a real organizer of that crime," Kashin told UPI. "He has a lot of influential friends. I have only my public [duty] to stop them."

Kashin was featured in the 2011 documentary "Putin's Kiss," which chronicles his friendship with a young teenage spokeswoman of the stridently nationalistic Russian organization Nashi.

"You can be a freelance writer only if you lead your own blog," Kashin told World Policy Journal in 2012. "All the major media outlets are owned businessmen loyal to the Kremlin, and even formally independent media are under their control," he adds.

Kashin also said that he is ready to withdraw his lawsuit accusing Russian law enforcement of reluctance to investigate his case, which was filed with the European Court of Human Rights.

"Our history shows that similar cases, especially where a contract has been taken out, are difficult and time-consuming to investigate, but that does not mean that they have been forgotten," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told news agency Interfax on Monday.