Russian Journalist Shot Down In Office

A correspondent for Russia’s largest television station was gunned down Thursday at his office in Dushanbe, the capital of war-wracked Tajikistan.

Viktor Nikulin, 27, was the 29th journalist killed in the former Soviet republic since 1992, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

He was shot twice after answering a knock on his office door Thursday afternoon, said Nadezhda Stekova, an official at ORT television in Moscow.

In Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s deputy interior minister, Gen. Gennady Blinov, told ITAR-Tass that the slaying was a “terrorist act” by an unknown gunman.

Tajikistan’s Moscow-backed government has been warring with Islamic opposition fighters for years.