KRASNODAR, May 17. /TASS/. Transport police said on Tuesday they have launched an investigation into an incident at an airport in the southern Russian city Anapa where a group of Cossacks attacked passengers awaiting a flight.

"The transport police personnel in southern Russia are currently carrying out a check into the incident at the Anapa airport between a group of citizens waiting for a flight and Cossacks," official spokeswoman Yelena Kotelnik said.

Some media reports said opposition leader Alexey Navalny was among those beaten. "They ran [at us], without allowing us to take off backpacks, and struck us down to the ground. They beat both men and women," he wrote on his Twitter page.