The chief of employees to Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition chief who died final month in an Arctic penal colony, was attacked with a hammer and tear gasoline exterior his dwelling in Lithuania’s capital late Tuesday, in keeping with Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, who stated the police and an ambulance had been known as to the scene.
Leonid Volkov, who served as considered one of Mr. Navalny’s high organizers, was pulling as much as his home in Vilnius when the assault occurred. A minimum of one assailant smashed his automobile window, sprayed him with tear gasoline and commenced beating him with a hammer, Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, stated in an announcement launched on X and in different feedback she gave to Russian media.
Mr. Volkov survived the assault.
Images posted on-line by one other high aide to Mr. Navalny confirmed Mr. Volkov aware however injured, with a mark on his head and blood streaming from one leg. Different pictures confirmed the bashed-in window of his automobile, which was parked in a driveway in entrance of a youngsters’s basketball hoop. Later within the night, the aide posted {a photograph} of Mr. Volkov being loaded into an ambulance and brought to the hospital.
“He started to struggle again with the automobile door and together with his legs,” Ms. Yarmysh advised the exiled Russian information outlet Meduza. “Due to this fact, they hit him the place they may — on his legs.”
The id of these behind the assault was unknown as of Tuesday evening, and it was not instantly clear whether or not there was one attacker, or extra.
The assault on Mr. Volkov occurred almost a month after Mr. Navalny’s loss of life in jail, in circumstances that haven’t but been defined.
The opposition campaigner’s spouse and aides accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of murdering Mr. Navalny. President Biden stated Mr. Putin “and his thugs” have been accountable for his loss of life. The Kremlin has denied the allegations. The Russian jail service stated Mr. Navalny had collapsed whereas taking a stroll exterior his cell.
The assault Tuesday evening comes amid broader worries in regards to the security of these persevering with Mr. Navalny’s work from overseas. Hours earlier than the assault, Mr. Volkov was requested in an interview with Meduza about the principle dangers for Mr. Navalny’s group. He replied: “The important thing danger is that we are going to all be killed.”
Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who uncovered the Russian intelligence unit behind a 2020 poisoning of Mr. Navalny in an investigation featured within the Oscar-winning documentary “Navalny,” issued a warning in Russian on X after the assault on Mr. Volkov. “The nice terror of a small dictator has begun,” Mr. Grozev stated. “Activists, journalists and easily free-thinking individuals — watch out. Don’t be afraid, however watch out. Don’t make issues simpler for brainless bandits.”
The Lithuanian police confirmed {that a} Russian citizen, whom they didn’t title, was crushed exterior his dwelling in Vilnius shortly after 10 p.m. native time, in keeping with the Baltic information outlet Delfi.
“Information about Leonid’s assault are stunning. Related authorities are at work,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s minister of overseas affairs, stated in an announcement on X. “Perpetrators must reply for his or her crime.”
Mr. Volkov, a former software-company government who ran Mr. Navalny’s nationwide community of regional workplaces in Russia, fled to Lithuania in 2019, as Russian authorities cracked down on Mr. Navalny’s anticorruption group and opened prison instances in opposition to his aides.
In latest days, Mr. Volkov had been main requires “Midday Towards Putin,” a plan for Russians who oppose the president to indicate up collectively on the nation’s polls at 12 p.m. on the final day of this weekend’s presidential election.
Earlier than his loss of life, Mr. Navalny had supported the concept as a manner for Russians to register resistance with out risking arrest. Mr. Volkov has known as on Russians to execute the plan as a option to honor the opposition chief’s final needs.
