Attack on Navalny confidant
Volkov: “They wanted to make a schnitzel out of me”
March 13, 2024, 8:41 a.m
The well-known Kremlin critic Leonid Volkov is attacked with a hammer in Lithuania. After the attack, he reports via online video: He is sure that Moscow is behind the possible murder attempt. However, he does not want to give up his fight against the Russian regime.
Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov – a close confidant of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in Russian custody – has been violently attacked while in exile in Lithuania. “They literally wanted to make a schnitzel out of me,” said the 43-year-old in an online video about the attack from the previous evening. Among other things, Volkov’s arm was broken in the attack in front of his home in Vilnius.
In the video published on the online platform Telegram, Navalny’s long-time confidant spoke of a “typical” attack by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s henchmen. During the attack, someone “hit him on the leg about 15 times.” “The leg is somehow okay. It hurts to walk. (…) But my arm is broken.” Volkov was temporarily hospitalized but later released.
Navalny’s former spokeswoman Kira Jarmisch had previously said that Volkov was initially attacked in his car. “Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas into his eyes,” she wrote on X. “Then the attacker started attacking Leonid with a hammer.” Volkov’s wife distributed photos of her injured husband. They showed, among other things, that the 43-year-old had a black eye and blood on his leg that was seeping through his jeans.
Lithuanian police confirmed to AFP that a Russian citizen was attacked near his home in Vilnius on Tuesday evening at around 10 p.m. local time. The perpetrators could not initially be identified. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis described the attack on X as “shocking.” “The perpetrators will be held accountable for their crimes.”
“We won’t give up”
Just hours before the attack, Volkov told the Russian news site Medusa that he also feared for his safety after Navalny’s death. “The big risk now is that we’ll all be killed. Why is pretty obvious.” The attack on Volkov came almost a month after Navalny’s death – and a few days before the start of the presidential election in Russia, in which Putin’s re-election is expected. The opposition activist now confirmed that he would not be intimidated by the attack: “We will work and we will not give up.”
The day before the attack, the 43-year-old wrote on online platforms: “Putin killed Navalny. And many others before that.” Volkov was one of Navalny’s closest confidants and, among other things, former chief of staff. He also headed the anti-corruption foundation founded by the Kremlin critic until 2023. In 2019, Volkov went into exile along with other Navalny allies after Russian authorities launched an investigation into the foundation. Since 2021, Volkov has been wanted by Russian authorities for his role in mass protests against the Kremlin.
According to Russian authorities, Navalny died on February 16 in a Russian prison camp in the Arctic, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence. According to Russian information, the 47-year-old died of “natural causes”, although the exact circumstances remain unclear. Navalny’s supporters and numerous Western politicians blame the Russian leadership and President Putin for the opposition figure’s death.