Leonid Volkov, high strategist of the late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny, on Wednesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” of being behind a brutal assault that left him hospitalized in Lithuania’s capital and vowed to “not hand over.”
Police mentioned an assailant attacked Volkov on Tuesday as he arrived in a automotive at his Vilnius house, the place he lives in exile. The attacker smashed one in all his automotive’s home windows, sprayed tear gasoline into his eyes and hit him with a hammer, police mentioned.
Volkov suffered a damaged arm “and for now he can not stroll due to the extreme bruising from the hammer blows,” in keeping with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis.
He was hospitalized, however later launched, and vowed Wednesday to maintain up his work.
‘We is not going to hand over’
“We’ll work, we is not going to hand over,” 43-year-old Volkov mentioned in a brief video posted on Telegram on Wednesday, talking together with his arm bandaged and in a sling. “It was a attribute bandit greeting from Putin’s henchmen.” This gave the impression to be a reference to each Putin’s thuggish model and his stint as a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg within the Nineties when it was thought-about probably the most felony cities in Russia.
Lithuania President Gitanas Nauseda mentioned the assault was clearly pre-planned and tied in with different provocations towards the nation.
“I can solely say one factor to Putin: no one is afraid of you right here,” Nauseda mentioned.
Lithuania’s State Safety Division counter-intelligence company mentioned the assault was in all probability carried out to cease the Russian opposition from influencing Russia’s presidential election.
Putin, in energy because the flip of the millennium, is holding an election in coming days towards token opposition to lengthen his rule by six extra years.
The Kremlin views Navalny’s staff as “essentially the most harmful opposition power able to exerting actual affect on Russia’s inner processes,” the Lithuanian safety company mentioned.
There was no fast remark from Moscow on the incident.
Lithuania’s police commissioner Renatas Pozela mentioned police had been devoting “large assets” to analyze the assault.
He insisted that the assault didn’t imply that the European Union and NATO nation of two.8 million folks, which borders Russia and Belarus and has develop into a base for Russian and Belarusian opposition figures, was now not protected.
“It is a one-time occasion which we are going to efficiently clear up…. Our folks shouldn’t be afraid due to this,” mentioned Pozela.
Volkov ‘inspiring,’ U.S. ambassador says
The U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, Kara McDonald, mentioned in a publish on X she was “shocked” by the information of the assault on Volkov.
“His resilience and braveness within the face of current makes an attempt to silence and intimidate him are inspiring. The Navalny staff stays an outspoken voice towards Kremlin repression and brutality,” she mentioned.
The assault occurred practically 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 broadly seen as politically motivated.
Opposition figures and Western leaders laid the blame on the Kremlin for Navalny’s loss of life — one thing officers in Moscow vehemently rejected.
Selling vote towards Putin
His funeral within the Russian capital on March 1 drew hundreds of supporters, a uncommon present of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid an unabating and ruthless crackdown on dissent, as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, vowed to proceed her late husband’s work.
Volkov was once answerable for Navalny’s regional places of work 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 beneath strain from the authorities.
Final yr, Volkov and his staff launched a mission known as “Navalny’s Campaigning Machine,” aiming to contact as many Russians as doable, both by telephone or on-line, looking 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 exhibit their discontent with the Kremlin. His allies have been actively selling the technique, dubbed “Midday Towards Putin,” in current weeks.
In an interview with Reuters hours earlier than Tuesday night time’s assault, Volkov mentioned leaders of Navalny’s motion in exile feared for his or her lives.
“They know that Putin not solely kills folks inside Russia, he additionally kills folks exterior of Russia,” Volkov informed Reuters within the interview. “We dwell in very darkish instances.”