VILNIUS, Lithuania — An in depth affiliate of the late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” on Wednesday of being behind a brutal assault that left him hospitalized.
Police stated an assailant attacked Leonid Volkov on Tuesday as he arrived in a automobile at his Vilnius residence, the place he lives in exile. The attacker smashed one among his automobile’s home windows, sprayed tear fuel into his eyes and hit him with a hammer, police stated.
Volkov suffered a damaged arm “and for now he can not stroll due to the extreme bruising from the hammer blows,” in line with Navalny’s The Anti-Corruption Basis.
He was hospitalized, however later launched, and vowed Wednesday to maintain up his work.
“We are going to work, we won’t surrender,” 43-year-old Volkov stated in a brief video posted on Telegram on Wednesday, talking along with his arm bandaged and in a sling. “It was a attribute bandit greeting from Putin’s henchmen.” This appeared to be a reference to each Putin’s thuggish type and his stint as a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg within the Nineteen Nineties when it was thought-about one of the crucial felony cities in Russia.
Police have launched a felony investigation.
Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s overseas minister, referred to as the assault “stunning.” He wrote on X, previously Twitter: “Related authorities are at work. Perpetrators must reply for his or her crime.”
President Gitanas Nauseda, talking to reporters, stated: “I can solely say one factor to Putin —no one is afraid of you right here.”
However the assault in reality underlined a way of insecurity felt not simply by Russian dissidents overseas, but additionally the various to have fled Russian ally Belarus searching for security in Lithuania, Poland and elsewhere.
“Sadly Belarussian individuals can’t really feel protected even being overseas,” the Belarusian opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, stated. “I believe the purpose of such assaults is to paralyze individuals, to paralyze democratic actions.”
The assault occurred almost a month after Navalny’s unexplained loss of life in a distant Arctic penal colony. He was Russia’s best-known opposition determine and Putin’s fiercest critic. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021 and was serving a 19-year jail time period there on the fees of extremism extensively seen as politically motivated.
Opposition figures and Western leaders laid the blame on the Kremlin for his loss of life — one thing officers in Moscow vehemently rejected.
His funeral within the Russian capital on March 1 drew 1000’s of supporters, a uncommon present of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid an unabating and ruthless crackdown on dissent, as Navalny’s widow Yulia vowed to proceed her late husband’s work.
Volkov was once answerable for Navalny’s regional workplaces and election campaigns. Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and sought to problem Putin within the 2018 presidential election. Volkov left Russia a number of years in the past underneath strain from the authorities.
Final 12 months, Volkov and his crew launched a mission referred to as “Navalny’s Campaigning Machine,” aiming to contact as many Russians as potential, both by cellphone or on-line, searching for to show them towards Putin forward of the March 15-17 presidential election.
Not lengthy earlier than his loss of life, Navalny urged supporters to flock to the polls at midday on the ultimate day of voting to display their discontent with the Kremlin. His allies have been actively selling the technique, dubbed “Midday Towards Putin,” in current weeks.
Russian impartial information outlet Meduza stated it interviewed Volkov a number of hours earlier than the assault and requested him about dangers for Navalny’s crew. “The important thing threat is that we are going to all be killed,” Meduza quoted Volkov as saying.
