St. Petersburg radio founder Sergey Nedovodin dies at 61 after beating outside his Moscow-region home

Sergey Nedovodin, a founder and former executive director of the radio station Ekho Peterburga, has died at the age of 61. The station's Telegram channel announced his death.

According to the news outlet Rotonda, Nedovodin had been in intensive care and unconscious since late June. He was hospitalized after being beaten in the Moscow region, where he had recently relocated.

A confrontation with a neighbor

His wife, Anna Shefner, said that on the evening of June 23, Nedovodin went outside after hearing a drunk neighbor loudly talking with a friend below his window, and told them off. The neighbor and his friend then beat him. Nedovodin's former colleague, Anastasia Mironova, said one of the neighbors had identified himself as a participant in what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In early August, Shefner described her husband's condition as extremely serious, with no prognosis and multiple complications, including sepsis and a lung abscess. He never regained consciousness.

Shefner filed a police report, but as of August 7 no criminal case had been opened over the attack. Mironova, however, says a case has since been opened.

Career in radio

Nedovodin helped launch Ekho Peterburga in 1998. During the 2010s, he served as a founder, minority shareholder, and executive director of the station, and for a time also ran its website. He left the station's management in 2015 following a conflict with the now-shuttered independent Russian station Ekho Moskvy. In recent years, he headed the research company SMR and the Living Future foundation, which, according to Rotonda, organizes patriotic events and cooperates with Russia's Defense Ministry.