Moscow, Russia - Award-winning Russian investigative journalist Elena Milashina, who was badly beaten in the republic of Chechnya, is in a "difficult" condition in a Moscow hospital, her editor told AFP on Wednesday.

International press freedom and rights groups voiced concern after Milashina said she had been beaten and held at gunpoint with a lawyer during a work trip to the volatile region in southern Russia earlier this week.

"Milashina is in Moscow in hospital. Her condition is, frankly, difficult: she was really severely beaten, beaten with a stick," Dmitry Muratov, the editor of her paper Novaya Gazeta, told AFP reporters in the Russian capital.

Novaya Gazeta published a video of Milashina in hospital with her head shaven and her hands bandaged.

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Human Rights Watch said the attackers shaved her head and poured a green-colored dye over her.

The Kremlin and the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said those responsible should be identified.

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin's spokesman said that it would take time for a full probe to be conducted, and that investigators were carrying out their work.

"Let's just wait. The reactions have all been voiced and now all actions are being taken," Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Muratov said Wednesday that Milashina's fingers had been broken and that the attackers had demanded access to her phone.

"Her condition is what you'd expect," he added.

Milashina has covered rights abuses in Chechnya, the Caucasus republic ruled for years by Kadyrov, a former warlord.

Since 2000, Novaya Gazeta has seen six of its journalists and contributors killed, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in Moscow on President Vladimir Putin's birthday. Nobel Prize-winning editor Muratov was also attacked with paint last year.