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The Russian opposition chief's former strategist was hospitalized after the assault on Tuesday night time.
Leonid Volkov, a detailed aide of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny who died in a distant penal colony final month, has been hospitalized after being attacked with a hammer exterior his residence within the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Volkov is one in all Russia's most distinguished opposition figures and was Navalny's former chief of workers and till just lately chairman of his anti-corruption basis.
The Kremlin ordered a warrant for Volkov's arrest in 2021.
“Leonid Volkov has simply been attacked exterior his residence. Somebody broke the automotive window and sprayed tear fuel in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer,” Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on the social media platform X on Tuesday night time.
Volkov's spouse Anna Biryukova additionally shared images of her husband's accidents on social media, together with a black eye, a crimson mark on his brow and bleeding on his leg that had soaked into his denims.
Navalny's group later shared a photograph of Volkov being carried to an ambulance on a stretcher and brought to hospital.
Lithuania's Overseas Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis described the assault, which occurred round 10 p.m. native time (20:00 GMT), as “surprising”.
“Criminals should reply for his or her crimes,” he wrote on X.
The assault got here almost a month after Navalny's unexplained demise within the penal colony the place he was serving a 19-year jail sentence on extremism prices extensively believed to be politically motivated.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's greatest critic, had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face sure arrest after being handled in Germany following his poisoning with nerve agent Novichok. Navalny's basis and a community of regional places of work for the struggle in opposition to corruption have been designated as an “extremist group” by the Russian authorities in the identical yr.
Navalny's demise, reported by jail authorities on February 16, shocked the world, with opposition figures and Western leaders blaming the Kremlin, which rejected the allegations.
1000’s of supporters attended the 47-year-old politician's funeral in Moscow on March 1, a uncommon present of defiance amid a brutal crackdown on dissent in Putin's Russia.
Volkov left Russia in 2019 below strain from authorities.
Final yr, he and his group launched a challenge referred to as “Navalny's Campaigning Machine”, aimed toward speaking to as many Russians as potential by cellphone or on-line and turning them in opposition to Putin forward of the March 15-17 presidential election.
Shortly earlier than his demise, Navalny urged supporters to vote at midday on Sunday, the final day of voting, to show their dissatisfaction with the Kremlin. His allies have in current weeks been actively selling a technique referred to as “midday in opposition to Putin.”
Russian impartial information outlet Meduza mentioned it interviewed Volkov a number of hours earlier than the assault and he mentioned he was involved about his security after Navalny's demise.
“The principle danger now could be that we are going to all be killed. Why, it's a really apparent factor,” the outlet quoted him as saying.
Lithuanian police mentioned that they had obtained data {that a} man had been crushed exterior his residence and so they have been investigating.
Police fenced off a pine forest close to Volkov's residence on the northern outskirts of Vilnius and officers have been seen looking out the realm with canine and flashlights late Tuesday.
EU member Lithuania is residence to many Russian exiles and has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.