Co-founder of Echo of Petersburg radio dies after beating near Moscow

Sergei Nedovodin, a co-founder and former executive director of the St. Petersburg radio station Echo of Petersburg, died in intensive care without regaining consciousness. The station's editorial team reported his death, as did the outlet Rotonda, citing Nedovodin's former colleagues.

On the evening of June 23, Nedovodin reprimanded a drunk neighbor and his friend for talking loudly in the courtyard of his apartment building in Vidnoye, a town outside Moscow where he had been living recently. The men beat him in response. According to Anastasia Mironova, a former colleague of Nedovodin, one of the neighbors identified himself as a "participant in the special military operation" — the Russian term for the war in Ukraine.

Nedovodin remained in intensive care in extremely serious condition from the time of the beating. His wife, Anna Shefner, said he had sepsis and a lung abscess, and that doctors gave no prognosis. She also noted that she called the police several times on the night of the attack, but officers arrived only after emergency medical workers — whom, according to Mironova, the neighbors briefly prevented from leaving the building — called them.

Shefner filed complaints with the police, the prosecutor's office and the Investigative Committee. As of August 7, no criminal case had been opened over the beating, Rotonda reported. Mironova, however, claimed that a case was opened on August 7 under the article on intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm. According to her, police know the identities of the attackers, who moved after the incident but live nearby.

Nedovodin helped found Echo of Petersburg in 1998. In the 2010s he was a founder, minority shareholder and executive director of the station, and also ran its website. He owned 24% of the company Muzykalnaya Faktoriya, which held Echo's broadcasting license in St. Petersburg. In 2015, Nedovodin left the station's management after a conflict with Echo of Moscow. In recent years he headed the research company SMR and the foundation Zhivoye Budushcheye, which organized patriotic events and cooperated with the Defense Ministry.