They attack the main ally of the late Russian adversary Alexei Navalny with a hammer

Leonid Volkov, The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s chief strategist and closest aide on Wednesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” of being behind a brutal attack that left him hospitalized in the Lithuanian capital, and vowed to “Don’t give up. ” .

An attacker attacked Volkov on Tuesday when he drove up to his home in Vilnius, where he lives in exile, according to police. According to the police, the attacker broke one of the windows, sprayed tear gas in his face and hit him with a hammer.

Volkov he suffered a broken arm and “for now he cannot walk due to severe bruises caused by the hammer blows,” according to Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Era hospitalizedalthough he was later discharged, and on Wednesday promised to continue working.

“We will not give up”

“We will work, we will not give up,” Volkov, 43, said in a short video shared Wednesday on Telegram, in which he appeared with his arm in a sling and in a sling.

“It was a bandit’s salute characteristic of Putin’s henchmen”. It appeared to be a reference to Putin’s tough style and his past as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, when it was considered one of the most crime-ridden cities in Russia.

The police have opened a criminal investigation.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, described the attack “shocking”. “The competent authorities are working. Those responsible will have to answer for their crime,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The attack occurred approximately a month after Navalny’s death in a remote Arctic penal colony. He was the opponent better known of Putin and his fiercest critic, and was serving a 19-year prison sentence for extremism charges, seen by many as politically motivated.

Western adversaries and leaders They blamed the Kremlin for his deathsomething that the Moscow authorities categorically rejected.

His funeral in the Russian capital on March 1 attracted thousands of followers, a rare display of defiance in Putin’s Russiawhere the repression of dissent continues unabated, while Navalny’s widow, Yulia, has promised to continue her husband’s work.

What was Volkov doing?

Volkov he managed Navalny’s regional offices and election campaigns.

Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and sought to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election. Volkov left Russia several years ago under pressure from the authorities.

Last year Volkov and his team launched a project called “Navalny Campaign Machinery”, with the aim of talking to as many Russians as possible, both by telephone and on the Internet, and turn them against Putin before the presidential elections which will be held from 15 to 17 March.

Shortly before his death, Navalny urged his supporters to do so as well Sunday at noon go en masse to the polls, on the last day of the vote, to demonstrate their discontent with the Kremlin. In recent weeks, his allies have actively promoted that strategy, called “Midday against Putin”.

The independent Russian newspaper Meduza said it had interviewed Volkov a few hours before the attack and asked him what he described “the main risk is that they kill us all”, according to statements cited by Meduza.