Navalny ally Leonid Volkov vows to continue fight against Putin after hammer attack in Vilnius

 

‘We will not give up,’ Volkov says in video after being discharged from hospital following attack in Lithuania that left him covered in blood

Leonid Volkov, a longtime aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has vowed to continue the struggle against Russian President Vladimir Putin after being attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania.

“We will work and we will not give up,” he said in a video clip posted on Telegram early on Wednesday, claiming that the attack that left him with a broken arm was a “characteristic bandit hello” from Putin’s henchmen.

Volkov, 43, was briefly hospitalised after the assault late on Tuesday, which sparked outrage from the Lithuanian government.

“The man attacked me in the yard, hit me on the leg about 15 times. The leg somehow is OK. It hurts to walk ... However, I broke my arm,” Volkov said in the Telegram post. “They literally wanted to make a schnitzel out of me.”

Volkov is one of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures and was a close confidant of Navalny, working as the late leader’s chief of staff and as chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation until 2023.

Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh earlier said that “someone broke a car window and sprayed teargas in his [Volkov’s] eyes” before hitting him with a hammer.

The attack comes almost a month after the sudden death of Navalny in an Arctic prison, which Volkov and Navalny’s widow Yulia blamed directly on the Russian president.

The day before he was attacked, Volkov wrote on social media: “Putin killed Navalny. And many others before that”, echoing similar claims made by Navalny’s allies, as well as US president Joe Biden.

Hours before the attack Volkov also told independent Russian news outlet Meduza that he was worried for his safety after Navalny’s death. “The key risk now is that we will all be killed. Why, it’s a pretty obvious thing,” the outlet quoted him as saying.

Images published by the Navalny team after the attack showed Volkov’s face and legs covered in blood, while another photo showed a car with its window smashed.

Lithuanian police spokesperson Ramunas Matonis confirmed to the news agency AFP that a Russian citizen had been assaulted near his home in the capital, Vilnius, at around 10pm on Tuesday.

The suspects had not been identified and more details about the assault were expected on Wednesday morning, he said.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, described the reported attack as “shocking”.

“News about Leonid’s assault are shocking. Relevant authorities are at work. Perpetrators will have to answer for their crime,” Landsbergis wrote on X.

Volkov had recently urged Russians to turn out in big numbers for an election day protest ahead of the upcoming presidential elections.

The incident marks the first attack on Navalny’s allies since they left Russia more than three years ago. Volkov and other key members of the Navalny team have lived in Lithuania since Russian authorities classified Navalny’s groups as “extremist” organisations in 2021. Most of Navalny’s closest allies are on Moscow’s wanted list and would face long-term prison sentences if they entered Russia.

Berlin police last year also opened an investigation into the suspected poisoning of two independent Russian journalists visiting the city for a conference organised by the Russian Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

from www.theguardian.com