 However, according to Mario Corti, head of RFERL, Russian service, Babitsky has not shied away from reporting Chechen atrocities and was the first Russian journalist to put the blame for the death of the American disaster relief specialist Fred Cuny on a Chechen warlord.At the outset of the Russian assault on the Chechen capital Grozny in January 2000 the Russian government announced that there were no civilians left in the city.Babitsky then managed to get into the besieged Grozny and reported under heavy bombing that this was not the case and that civilians did remain in the city.