The Moscow Times tells the sad news that Yuri Chervochkin, about whom we reported earlier this week, has succumbed to the injuries he sustained at the hands of Vladimir Putin's thugs:

Yury Chervochkin, an activist with the Other Russia opposition coalition, died in a hospital on Monday of injuries his colleagues say he sustained when attacked by police. Chervochkin, 22, was beaten by four assailants on Nov. 22 in the town of Serpukhov, about 100 kilometers south of Moscow, said Alexander Averin, a spokesman for the coalition. He was found later that evening unconscious outside his apartment building in Serpukhov, Averin said. Chervochkin never regained consciousness and died of head injuries in the Burdenko Research Institute's medical center on Monday, he added. Averin said Chervochkin was involved in promoting the Nov. 24 Dissenters' March in central Moscow around the time of the attack. Chervochkin made a phone call to news editors of the Kasparov.ru web site about half an hour before the attack, saying he was being followed by four people whom he recognized as being linked to police officers who specialize in fighting organized crime, said Sergei Baranov, a fellow Other Russia activist. Baranov said that he was arrested by the organized crime police on Dec. 3 -- after the attack and opposition rally and while Chervochkin was still alive -- and was told while in custody that if "you don't calm down, we will come after you, too." Baranov said, "The police never scared me and I will continue working against the regime in honor of Yury." Telephone calls to the Moscow branch of the Interior Ministry's organized crime and terrorism department went unanswered late Tuesday.