[ad_1]
Leonid Volkov, high strategist of the late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny, on Wednesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” of being behind a brutal assault that left him hospitalized in Lithuania’s capital and vowed to “not surrender.”
Police mentioned an assailant attacked Volkov on Tuesday as he arrived in a automobile at his Vilnius residence, the place he lives in exile. The attacker smashed considered one of his automobile’s home windows, sprayed tear fuel into his eyes and hit him with a hammer, police mentioned.
Volkov suffered a damaged arm “and for now he can not stroll due to the extreme bruising from the hammer blows,” based on Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis.
He was hospitalized, however later launched, and vowed Wednesday to maintain up his work.
‘We won’t surrender’
“We are going to work, we won’t surrender,” 43-year-old Volkov mentioned in a brief video posted on Telegram on Wednesday, talking along with his arm bandaged and in a sling. “It was a attribute bandit greeting from Putin’s henchmen.” This gave the impression to be a reference to each Putin’s thuggish type and his stint as a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg within the Nineteen Nineties when it was thought of some of the felony cities in Russia.
Lithuania President Gitanas Nauseda mentioned the assault was clearly pre-planned and tied in with different provocations in opposition to the nation.
“I can solely say one factor to Putin: no person is afraid of you right here,” Nauseda mentioned.
Lithuania’s State Safety Division counter-intelligence company mentioned the assault was in all probability carried out to cease the Russian opposition from influencing Russia’s presidential election.
Putin, in energy for the reason that flip of the millennium, is holding an election in coming days in opposition to token opposition to lengthen his rule by six extra years.
The Kremlin views Navalny’s staff as “probably the most harmful opposition pressure able to exerting actual affect on Russia’s inner processes,” the Lithuanian safety company mentioned.
There was no instant remark from Moscow on the incident.
Lithuania’s police commissioner Renatas Pozela mentioned police had been devoting “big assets” to research the assault.
He insisted that the assault didn’t imply that the European Union and NATO nation of two.8 million folks, which borders Russia and Belarus and has turn into a base for Russian and Belarusian opposition figures, was now not secure.
“It is a one-time occasion which we are going to efficiently remedy…. Our folks shouldn’t be afraid due to this,” mentioned Pozela.
Volkov ‘inspiring,’ U.S. ambassador says
The U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, Kara McDonald, mentioned in a publish on X she was “shocked” by the information of the assault on Volkov.
“His resilience and braveness within the face of current makes an attempt to silence and intimidate him are inspiring. The Navalny staff stays an outspoken voice in opposition to Kremlin repression and brutality,” she mentioned.
The assault passed off practically a month after Navalny’s unexplained demise in a distant Arctic penal colony. He was Russia’s best-known opposition determine and Putin’s fiercest critic. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021 and was serving a 19-year jail time period there on the costs of extremism extensively seen as politically motivated.
Opposition figures and Western leaders laid the blame on the Kremlin for Navalny’s demise — one thing officers in Moscow vehemently rejected.
Selling vote in opposition to Putin
His funeral within the Russian capital on March 1 drew hundreds of supporters, a uncommon present of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid an unabating and ruthless crackdown on dissent, as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, vowed to proceed her late husband’s work.
Volkov was once in control of Navalny’s regional places of work and election campaigns. Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and sought to problem Putin within the 2018 presidential election. Volkov left Russia a number of years in the past underneath stress from the authorities.
Final yr, Volkov and his staff launched a challenge referred to as “Navalny’s Campaigning Machine,” aiming to contact as many Russians as doable, both by cellphone or on-line, searching for to show them in opposition to Putin forward of the March 15-17 presidential election.
Not lengthy earlier than his demise, Navalny urged supporters to flock to the polls at midday on the ultimate day of voting to display their discontent with the Kremlin. His allies have been actively selling the technique, dubbed “Midday Towards Putin,” in current weeks.
In an interview with Reuters hours earlier than Tuesday evening’s assault, Volkov mentioned leaders of Navalny’s motion in exile feared for his or her lives.
“They know that Putin not solely kills folks inside Russia, he additionally kills folks exterior of Russia,” Volkov informed Reuters within the interview. “We dwell in very darkish occasions.”
[ad_2]
Source link