A close associate and key strategist of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in Siberia, was attacked near his home in the Lithuanian capital today, they said today.
Kira Yarmish, Navalny's spokeswoman, said the attacker smashed Leonid Volkov's car window, threw tear gas and began beating him with a hammer. According to Navalny's partner Ivan Zhdano, Volkov was later taken to hospital.
The attack in Vilnius came a month after the still unexplained death of a staunch critic of Putin in a remote Arctic penal colony. Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence on terrorism charges considered politically motivated.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and well-known Russian dissident, has been detained since January 2021 after returning to Moscow to face some arrest after recovering from an alleged Kremlin poisoning in Germany.
Volkov led the election campaigns of Navalny, who ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, and sought to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election.
Volkov left the Russian Federation years ago under pressure from Moscow leaders.
Russian independent news agency Medusa reported that Volkov was stricken hours before the attack 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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