Those close to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison in Siberia, said today that his closest ally and main strategist was attacked today near his residence in the capital of Lithuania.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, said the attacker smashed the window of Leonid Volkov's car, threw tear gas and began attacking him with a hammer. Volkov was later taken to hospital, according to Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny ally.
The attack in Vilnius occurred about a month after Putin's most powerful critic died in a remote penal colony in the Arctic. Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges considered politically motivated.
Navalny, the anti-corruption activist and Russia's most famous opposition figure, has been detained since January 2021, after returning to Moscow to face certain arrest, having been in Germany recovering from a poisoning blamed on the Kremlin.
Volkov used to direct the election campaigns of Navalny, who ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and sought to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential elections.
Volkov left the Russian Federation several years ago, under pressure from Moscow leaders.
The independent Russian news agency Meduza reported that it had interviewed Volkov hours before the attack in which he fell victim, and asked him about the risks facing members of Navalny's team. “The main danger is that we will all be killed,” Volkov said, according to Medusa.
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