Leonid Volkov, the former chief of staff of late Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, was attacked on Tuesday outside his house in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Navalny’s former press person and assistant Kira Yarmysh reported the attack on social media.
“Leonid Volkov has just been attacked near his home. They broke the window in his car and sprayed tear gas in his eyes, after which the attacker began to beat Leonid with a hammer. Now Leonid is at home, the police and an ambulance are on their way to him,” she wrote in a post on X.
A later post on the Team Navalny X handle showed a photo of Volkov being wheeled out of an ambulance.
Volkov, 43, served as Navalny’s chief of staff for his 2018 presidential election campaign and was also the chairman of his Anti-Corruption Foundation until 2023.
He was one of the key interviewees in Daniel Roher’s Oscar-winning documentary Navalny with Navalny, his wife Yulia Navalnaya, Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev and Anti-Corruption Foundation investigator Maria Pevchikh.
Volvok has lived in Lithuania since 2020 after groups linked to Navalny were classed as “extremist” by Russian authorities.
The attack on Volkov comes on the eve of Russia’s upcoming presidential election, running from 15 to 17 March, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to win having neutralized his political opponents.
Last month, Volkov urged Russians to turn out in big numbers for an election day protest against Putin called by Navalny shortly before he died suddenly in an Arctic prison on February 16.
