Moscow screening of film about Welsh journalist stormed by masked men

A screening of a film about Welsh journalist was stormed by two dozen masked men in Moscow, a civil rights group has said.

Mr. Jones tells the story of Gareth Jones who in 1933 travelled to the Soviet Union and uncovered the truth about the Holodomor, a famine in Ukraine in which millions died.

After being banned from re-entering the Soviet Union, Jones was later kidnapped and murdered in 1935 while investigating in Japanese-occupied Mongolia.

The film of his life was being screened by rights group Memorial on Thursday when it was interrupted by people who chanted “Fascists!” and “Foreign agents!”, they said.

The history of the famine is contested by Russia, while Ukraine has declared it a genocide – and tensions around the history have been heightened by the seven-year Russo-Ukrainian War.

But Natalya Petrova of Memorial told Reuters the screening was “just a pretext” for the protest.

Irina Shcherbakova of Memorial told TV Rain that they had faced intimidation before.

“This was scarier than what we have seen before,” she said. “What we’re witnessing is a purge of civil society.”

The British-made Mr. Jones stars English actor James Norton and was co-produced by Glasgow-based company Crab Apple Films.