On 25 August 2023, a man later identified as Igor Berdov assaulted Al Jazeera correspondent Ranya Dridi near a memorial to Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg, Russian media reported. The memorial to the founder of Wagner was created spontaneously near the private military company’s headquarters following Prigozhin’s death. According to Russian media, Dridi was reporting live from the scene when Berdov interrupted the broadcast, demanding she speak in Russian. He then hit the journalist on her right temple and left the area. Dridi was taken to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with a closed head injury and a concussion. On August 28, Russian media reported that police had detained Berdov in Petrozavodsk, a city north of St. Petersburg, where he lived and worked as a sales manager. He was reportedly sentenced to 2.5 years of prison for fraud in 2017, but was set free a year later on parole.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash on August 23, exactly three months after his failed rebellion and “march on Moscow”, which he initiated with the support of Wagner mercenaries, accusing the Russian Ministry of Defence of incompetence in the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
UPDATE: On 20 May 2024, Berdov was found guilty of beatings and sentenced to a suspended one-year prison sentence, as well as to a probationary period of one year and eleven months.