Russian Regional Opposition Paper Firebombed

The office of a Russian regional newspaper published by the Yabloko opposition party has been destroyed in a Molotov cocktail attack, the party said on Sunday.

The attack on the Vecherny Krasnokamsk weekly in the Perm region in the Urals occurred early Saturday, Yabloko said on its website. No one was reported hurt in the pre-dawn incident.

"An unknown man broke the window of the newspaper office and threw in a Molotov cocktail. In minutes the whole office was destroyed by the fire," the liberal party said, adding the attack was captured on security cameras.

The newspaper's editor, Olga Kolokolova, heads the Perm region's branch of Yabloko.

The party linked the attack to the newspaper's investigative reports on corruption by the Krasnokamsk Mayor Yury Chechetkin.

"Suspicion has fallen on the mayor, whom Yabloko accuses of syphoning off money," Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin wrote on his blog.

Chechetkin rejected the charges in comments to the Kommersant daily.

"These are unfounded accusations," the paper quoted him as saying. "I can't see any problems with the newspaper continuing to come out."

Russia's central electoral commission last week excluded Yabloko's candidate Grigory Yavlinsky, from the presidential polls that Vladimir Putin is expected to win in March.

The commission rejected the veteran politician, saying too many of the two million supporters' signatures he submitted to qualify were invalid. There is now only one independent candidate in the race, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov.