A longtime aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania on Tuesday, less than a month after the fierce critic of Vladimir Putin died in prison.
Leonid Volkov, who worked with Navalny as a top adviser and helped run his campaigns, was left bloodied after the attack, a spokesperson who worked for the opposition leader wrote on X. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation posted brutal photos on the social media site, which show Volkov with a bloody leg and face injuries.
The man lives in Lithuania in self-imposed exile for at least four years. A court in Moscow had ordered his arrest in 2021 on charges officials condemned as “politically motivated prosecution.”
“Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer,” Kira Yarmysh wrote. “Leonid is now at home, police and ambulance are on their way to him.”
Leonid Volkov @leonidvolkov has just been attacked outside his house. Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer. Leonid is now at home, police and ambulance are on their way to him
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) March 12, 2024
He has returned home with a broken hand or arm, and was unable to walk due to injuries to his leg, Volkov’s wife said later Tuesday, per the BBC.
“We will all work even more,” his wife wrote on X. “And with even greater anger.”
Navalny, one of the most outspoken critics of the Russian president, was pronounced dead in February while being held in a penal colony. He was 47.
His death has once again galvanized Putin critics and thrust his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, into the public eye despite the Kremlin’s fierce crackdown on dissenters since it began its invasion of Ukraine.
“I want Putin and everyone around him, Putin’s friends, his government, to know that they will bear responsibility for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband,” she said in a video shortly after his death. “And this day will come very soon.”
Lithuania’s foreign affairs minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, vowed to hold those behind the attack accountable, calling the attack “shocking.”
“Perpetrators will have to answer for their crime,” he said on X.
Russia is set to hold presidential elections later this week. Putin is widely expected to win a fifth six-year term.
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