International Courant
Former strategist for the Russian opposition chief was hospitalized on Tuesday night after the assault.
Leonid Volkov, an in depth ally of Russian opposition chief Alexey Navalny who died final month in a distant penal colony, has been hospitalized after he was attacked with a hammer exterior his house in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
Volkov is one in all Russia’s most outstanding opposition figures and was Navalny’s former chief of employees and till just lately chairman of his Anti-Corruption Basis.
The Kremlin issued an arrest warrant for Volkov in 2021.
“Leonid Volkov was simply attacked exterior his house. Somebody broke a automobile window and sprayed tear gasoline in his eyes, after which the attacker began hitting Leonid with a hammer,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on social media platform X on Tuesday night.
Volkov’s spouse Anna Biryukova additionally shared photographs of her husband’s accidents on social media, together with a black eye, a purple mark on his brow and bleeding on his leg, which had penetrated via his denims.
Navalny’s workforce later shared a photograph of Volkov being carried on a stretcher into an ambulance and brought to hospital.
Lithuanian Overseas Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis referred to as the assault, which befell round 10 p.m. native time (8 p.m. GMT), “surprising.”
The “perpetrators should reply for his or her crime,” he wrote on X.
The assault got here virtually a month after Navalny’s unexplained demise on the penal colony, the place he was serving a 19-year jail sentence on fees of extremism, extensively seen as politically motivated.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, had been in jail since January 2021 when he returned to Moscow and was arrested after receiving remedy in Germany after being poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent. Navalny’s Basis for the Struggle Towards Corruption and a community of regional places of work have been labeled “extremist organizations” by the Russian authorities that very same 12 months.
Navalny’s demise, reported by jail authorities on February 16, despatched shockwaves around the globe, with opposition figures and Western leaders blaming the Kremlin, which rejected the fees.
The 47-year-old politician’s funeral in Moscow on March 1 drew 1000’s of supporters, a uncommon present of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid a brutal crackdown on dissent.
Volkov was a outstanding ally of Russian opposition chief Alexey Navalny who died final month in a distant penal colony within the Russian Arctic (Frederick Florin/AFP)
Volkov left Russia in 2019 beneath stress from authorities.
Final 12 months, he and his workforce launched a challenge referred to as “Navalny’s Campaigning Machine,” with the goal of speaking to as many Russians as doable, by cellphone or on-line, and turning them in opposition to Putin within the run-up to the 15-17 presidential election March.
Not lengthy earlier than his demise, Navalny urged his supporters to go to the polls on Sunday afternoon, the final day of voting, to precise their dissatisfaction with the Kremlin. His allies have been actively selling the technique, referred to as “Midday Towards Putin,” in current weeks.
Russian impartial information channel Meduza mentioned it interviewed Volkov a number of hours earlier than the assault and mentioned he was involved about his security after Navalny’s demise.
“The principle threat now’s that we are going to all be killed. Properly, it is fairly apparent,” the outlet quoted him as saying.
Lithuanian police mentioned they’d been knowledgeable {that a} man had been crushed exterior his house and have been investigating.
Police have fenced off a pine forest close to Volkov’s house on the northern outskirts of Vilnius and late Tuesday night time officers searched the world with canines and flashlights.
Lithuania, a member of the European Union, is house to many Russian exiles and has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Navalny ally Leonid Volkov attacked with hammer close to Lithuanian house | Crime information
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