The chief of workers to Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition chief who died final month in an Arctic penal colony, was attacked with a hammer and tear gasoline exterior his house in Lithuania’s capital late Tuesday, in line with Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, who mentioned the police and an ambulance had been known as to the scene.
Leonid Volkov, who served as considered one of Mr. Navalny’s high organizers, was pulling as much as his home in Vilnius when the assault occurred. No less than one assailant smashed his automotive window, sprayed him with tear gasoline and started beating him with a hammer, Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, mentioned in a press release launched on X and in different feedback she gave to Russian media.
Mr. Volkov survived the assault.
Pictures posted on-line by one other high aide to Mr. Navalny confirmed Mr. Volkov acutely aware however injured, with a mark on his head and blood streaming from one leg. Different pictures confirmed the bashed-in window of his automotive, which was parked in a driveway in entrance of a kids’s basketball hoop. Later within the night, the aide posted {a photograph} of Mr. Volkov being loaded into an ambulance and brought to the hospital.
“He started to battle again with the automotive door and together with his legs,” Ms. Yarmysh advised the exiled Russian information outlet Meduza. “Due to this fact, they hit him the place they may — on his legs.”
The id of these behind the assault was unknown as of Tuesday evening, and it was not instantly clear whether or not there was one attacker, or extra.
The assault on Mr. Volkov occurred almost a month after Mr. Navalny’s dying in jail, in circumstances that haven’t but been defined.
The opposition campaigner’s spouse and aides accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of murdering Mr. Navalny. President Biden mentioned Mr. Putin “and his thugs” had been liable for his dying. The Kremlin has denied the allegations. The Russian jail service mentioned Mr. Navalny had collapsed whereas taking a stroll exterior his cell.
The assault Tuesday evening comes amid broader worries concerning the security of these persevering with Mr. Navalny’s work from overseas. Hours earlier than the assault, Mr. Volkov was requested in an interview with Meduza about the principle dangers for Mr. Navalny’s group. He replied: “The important thing threat is that we’ll all be killed.”
Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who uncovered the Russian intelligence unit behind a 2020 poisoning of Mr. Navalny in an investigation featured within the Oscar-winning documentary “Navalny,” issued a warning in Russian on X after the assault on Mr. Volkov. “The nice terror of a small dictator has begun,” Mr. Grozev mentioned. “Activists, journalists and easily free-thinking folks — watch out. Don’t be afraid, however watch out. Don’t make issues simpler for brainless bandits.”
“Information about Leonid’s assault are surprising. Related authorities are at work,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s minister of international affairs, mentioned in a press release on X. “Perpetrators should reply for his or her crime.”
Mr. Volkov, a former software-company government who ran Mr. Navalny’s nationwide community of regional workplaces in Russia, fled to Lithuania in 2019, as Russian authorities cracked down on Mr. Navalny’s anticorruption group and opened prison instances towards his aides.
In latest days, Mr. Volkov had been main requires “Midday Towards Putin,” a plan for Russians who oppose the president to indicate up collectively on the nation’s polls at 12 p.m. on the final day of this weekend’s presidential election.
Earlier than his dying, Mr. Navalny had supported the concept as a approach for Russians to register resistance with out risking arrest. Mr. Volkov has known as on Russians to execute the plan as a method to honor the opposition chief’s final needs.
