Fans in Moscow Injured as Taxi Plows into Crowd

Following the start of the Russia 2018 World Cup, a taxi driver in Moscow plowed into a crowd of people who were in the Red Square in the city, claiming that the action was not his fault. The driver, whose identification revealed him to be Chingiz Anarbek Uulu of Kochkor-Ata in Kyrgyzstan, said that he had not intentionally plowed into the crowd, citing a 20-hr workday that he was on the verge of ending, and unfortunately pressing his foot on the accelerator instead of the brake as he tried to bring his vehicle to a halt. A total of eight members of the public were injured, many who were foreign nationals in the city to witness the spectacle of the World Cup. One of the persons, a lady, was said to be in critical condition, but no more details have been released about this.

Speculation about the taxi driver mindlessly mowing down pedestrians, a couple of whom were bumped onto the hood of the car before it crashed into a traffic sign ten meters later, ran rife, with some claiming that he had terrorist links, and others pointing to his last post on Odnoklassniki, a  Russian social media platform, being taken from the Koran tried to paint him in a more conveniently abhorrent light. Other speculations included witnesses commenting on the fact that two of the people injured in this incident were from Mexico, trying to draw a long-reaching connection to some sort of plot to attack fans from specific nations.

The reaction against the driver grew violent initially, with bystanders coming to the aid of their fallen comrades and trying to pull the driver out of the taxi. Unfortunately for them, he managed to escape on foot for a little distance before being brought down again with public assistance.