“Putin no one is afraid of you here”: An angry reaction from the Lithuanian president to the attack on his partner Navalni

Her president did not hide his anger over the murderous attack he received his right hand, Leonid Volkov outside his house in Vilnius by a stranger who struck him at least 15 times with a hammer. Lithuania has directly accused Moscow of stating that the attack against Volkov was clearly planned. “I can say one thing to Putin: no one is afraid of you here,” Nauseda stressed. 43-year-old Volkov was brutally attacked last night by a hammer outside his house. He explained today that he was attacked by a man who hit him “about 15 times” with a hammer and added that he has suffered a fracture in the hand. Lithuania’s deputy police chief Saulius Tamulevious said researchers are examining various versions. At present no suspects have been arrested or identified. Volkov is one of the most important figures of the Russian opposition and was a right hand of Navalni, who died on February 16 at the age of 47 in a Russian prison colony in the Arctic cycle where he served a 19-year sentence for “extremism”. Lithuania’s state security counter-terrorism agency noted that the attack was intended to prevent the Russian opposition from affecting the presidential elections in Russia. The Kremlin considers Navalni’s group “the most powerful opposition force, capable of exerting real influence on Russia’s internal processes,” the agency announced. Moscow has not yet commented on the incident. Volkov himself directly accused Putin of attacking him. In a post on Telegram he reported returning home this morning after spending the night at the hospital. He explained that he has a broken arm and wounds from about 15 hits he received on the leg with a hammer. “It is an obvious, characteristic, criminal ‘hello’ by Putin,” he wrote. “We will continue to work and we will not retreat,” Volkov stressed in his posting. “It’s hard but we’ll face it (…) It is good that I am still alive.” In an interview with Reuters prior to yesterday’s attack Volkov had pointed out that the leaders of Navalni’s movement in exile fear for their lives. “They know Putin does not only kill people within Russia, he kills outside Russia,” he stressed. “We live in very dark times”. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis condemned the “shocking” attack and assured with a message to X that its perpetrators “will answer for their crimes”. Lithuanian police inspector Renatas Posela said the police have dedicated “great resources” to investigate the attack. Posela insisted that this attack does not mean that Lithuania, an EU and NATO member country bordering Russia and Belarus and has been assigned to a basis for opposition personalities from these two countries, is no longer safe. “This is an isolated incident which we will successfully resolve (…) our citizens should not be afraid because of it,” he stressed.