Russian Mob Attacks Gov. Building Over Highway Plan

An angry mob outraged by a plan to build a highway in the middle of a Russian forest attacked the mayor's office in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, smashing windows with stones and smoke grenades, France 24 reports. YouTube user Berillii gave this account of his video to the French network's Observers program, confirming a report in Kommersant newspaper that the incident was the work of anarchists rather than environmental activists:

"At 6pm a big group of young people were gathered at Trubnaya Square in Moscow: there were anarchists, punks, young communists and regular students. Many of them looked like they'd just come to listen to a concert and didn't know that the music was a just a cover for a planned riot. At about 7pm, a singer from one of the bands climbed up on a statue overlooking the square and declared that police, private security guards and Nazi thugs were attacking the environmental protesters in Khimki, and that we should take revenge. He called everyone to go to Petrovsko-Razumovskaya train station, and we set off from there to Khimki in 10 minutes.

I think there were at least 200 people participating in the protest and ensuing riots: I saw several train wagons full. I recall seeing one guy pick up a metal rod from the rail track, and I was thinking that things could get ugly. The crowd marched down Moskovskaya street up to the administrative building. The column of people stretched all the way down the street. When the start of the protest reached the building and started shooting from traumatic pistols (Russian rubber-bullet self-defense guns), people at end of the procession thought that a clash had broken out between protesters and security. (In fact, security guards were completely taken by surprise, and quickly fled the scene.)

I ran to the front of the procession and started filming. My video shows what happened from then on: the shooting, the stone-throwing, the graffiti, then the retreat, the march back to the train station. Everything went very fast."



User name: Berillii
Location: Khimki, Russia
Date uploaded: July 28
Views: 69,469
Click here to watch this video on YouTube.