18-year-old Ekaterina Lysykh needed hospital treatment after the horrific beating (Instagram/@alina__rosso)

An 18-year-old girl suffered severe facial injuries when she was set upon by seven men in an alleged homophobic attack in St Petersburg, Russia.

Ekaterina Lyskh and her girlfriend Alina were walking with two other friends in the city centre on Monday, December 9, when a group of men began following them and hurling homophobic insults.

“Are you lesbians? Do you have a d**k?” the men reportedly shouted. “Do you like it when they lick you? Now I’ll show you how you need to f**k.”

Alina told Russian news site Paper: “They began to insult us in a rude manner due to the fact that the girls have a peculiar look.

“They came too close, asking what was in our pockets. We tried to move on, but the men blocked our moves.”

Describing the attack on Instagram, she says the girls tried to run away but the men caught up with them and struck them in the legs. Seeking safety in a “public place”, they ran into a nearby coffee shop but were followed there too.

Once inside one of the girls tried to use a pepper spray, which is when one of the men reportedly hit her in the face. 18-year-old Ekaterina jumped in to defend her friend, but the men turned on her instead.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alina__Rosso (@alina__rosso) on Dec 10, 2019 at 4:22am PST

Ekaterina received several blows to the face and head in an attack so brutal that she has lost memory of most of it. She was later diagnosed with a concussion and needed stitches to the side of her mouth.

The seven men fled the scene and have not been detained by the police.

Alina wrote: “We were not even given the opportunity to call the police. Now we’ll go write a statement […] What right does a person have to beat for being a person of a different orientation? How much longer can this go on?!

“We want these b****ds to be punished and will do everything for this.”