Hammer attack on Navalny ally likely a warning to Russian opposition, Lithuania says

The attack on Leonid Volkov didn’t come as a complete surprise — either to the Russian opposition figure who was assaulted by an assailant wielding a hammer Tuesday evening or to the government of Lithuania where he lives.

A close friend and ally of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison last month, Volkov was attacked just outside of his house by two men, according to his wife.

“They wanted to make a meat cutlet out of me,” Volkov, Navalny’s ex-policy chief and a key figure in the former opposition leader’s movement, said on Telegram, adding that he had been struck on the leg with a meat tenderizer some 15 times and that his arm had been broken.

Navalny’s team and the Lithuanian authorities blamed the attack on Moscow, saying they believe it was a warning to the opposition as Russia prepares to vote this weekend in a rigged election in which Vladimir Putin is certain to be the winner.

“This was an obvious, typical, characteristic, St.-Petersburg-bandit-like hello from Putin,” Volkov said in a video after being discharged from the hospital. “Vladimir Vladimirovich: hello to you too.” 

Senior officials in Vilnius are concerned.

“The aim of the operation was likely to curb Russian opposition activities related to the upcoming undemocratic Russian presidential elections,” Lithuania’s State Security Department (VSD) said in a statement Wednesday. The Kremlin has made no official comment about the attack.

Lithuanian authorities, opposition figures and some analysts have warned of attacks on dissidents as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on. A month ago Maksim Kuzminov, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine last year, was found dead in Spain. 

“The message is, if you choose to become an enemy of the motherland, then you can’t be surprised if the motherland deals with you,” said Mark Galeotti, head of the London-based Mayak Intelligence consultancy firm and a leading Russia expert. 

“It’s very easy to slip some local thug a certain amount of money just to go and attack someone,” he added.

Attacks such as the one on Volkov “speaks to this whole approach that Putin has adopted, which is that Russia is at war with the West” and what he considers its agents, Galeotti said. “Any Russians who are not patriots in his eyes are traitors. There is no more middle ground.”

The Lithuanian police are “intensively preparing” for this weekend as Russians vote in a three-day election which will begin Friday and run until Sunday | Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images

According to Lithuania’s State Security Department, Russia recruits operatives abroad via social media. The motive behind the attacks can be ideological or financial. 

“Different kinds of provocations have become part of our daily routine,“ Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė said in a press conference Wednesday. She said she believes the number of incidents will grow “ahead of the pseudo elections in Russia.” 

The Lithuanian police are “intensively preparing” for this weekend as Russians vote in a three-day election which will begin Friday and run until Sunday. Other Baltic countries are preparing as well. Representatives from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia met this week to discuss safety measures. 

Volkov is one of many Russian opposition activists in exile in Vilnius. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, the country provides asylum to several thousand political activists, journalists and human rights’ defenders who have been persecuted by Moscow and Minsk.

One of the Russian activists in Vilnius who asked to only be identified by his first name, Fyodor, said he had been expecting some kind of attack, as the city is full of Kremlin opponents.

“I don’t think it will affect everyone who left Russia for political reasons,” he said. “But those who are the most visible or the most radically opposed to, say, Putin’s regime, I think they are more at risk.”

Eva Hartog contributed to this report.