A close confidant of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in a prison camp three weeks ago, was attacked and injured while in exile in Lithuania. The opposition member Leonid Volkov was attacked in front of his house, wrote Kira Yarmysch, who was Navalny’s spokesman until Navalny’s death, on Platform X on Tuesday evening. Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas into his eyes. The attacker then began hitting Volkov with a hammer. Volkov is now at home and the police and ambulance are on their way to him.
Meanwhile, Volkov has himself in a video on his Telegram channel commented on the incident. As the AFP news agency reports, Volkov explains that he has a broken arm. The attack was typical of Putin’s henchmen. He continued to be combative: “We will continue and not give up,” said the opposition member, according to the report.
On the same day, Volkov told the Russian exile newspaper Meduza When asked what risks Navalny’s team now faces, he replied: “The biggest risk now is that we will all be killed. Well, that’s a pretty obvious thing.” It was as if he had anticipated the attack on him a short time later.
Born in 1980, Volkov was a close confidant of Navalny. He recently warned against lies from the Kremlin and Moscow state propaganda in the Navalny case. If the news of Navalny’s death is true, then Navalny did not just die, but Russian President Vladimir Putin killed him, Volkov wrote. Last year he received the Theodor Heuss Prize. The Theodor Heuss Foundation justified the choice as Volkov took great risks against state lies and disinformation campaigns in Russia.
The background to the crime is still unclear at this point. However, journalist Sergei Parchomenko writes on his Telegram channel that Volkov lives outside the city. He therefore considers an ordinary robbery or attack to be absurd. He writes that the perpetrator must have been a man who specifically wanted to attack Volkov. Dem Mirror According to the police, they have started investigating the case.
Lithuania’s foreign minister horrified
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis reacted with horror to the attack on Volkov. The news about the attack was “shocking” wrote Landsbergis on Platform X. “The responsible authorities are at work. The perpetrators must answer for their actions.”
The circumstances surrounding the death of Volkov’s friend Navalny remain unclear. The politician, weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and repeated solitary confinement, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard in mid-February and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. According to Navalny’s team, the death certificate allegedly mentions “natural” causes.