Navalny aide suffers ‘minor health impairment’ from attack

VILNIUS: Lithuanian police said on Wednesday they had launched an investigation into an assault on Leonid Volkov, the long-time aide to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after he was attacked outside his home in Vilnius on Tuesday.

Volkov was assaulted with tear gas and a hammer, suffering among other things a bruise to his forehead and a leg wound, former Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh has said.

Volkov was back home from the hospital on Wednesday after receiving treatment, he said in a Telegram post.

The investigation was launched into a “minor health impairment”, a Lithuania police spokesperson told Reuters, while adding that no suspects had yet been identified. Several police units including the elite anti-terrorism unit had been investigating the crime scene near Volkov’s house on the Lithuanian capital’s northern outskirts overnight.Lithuania’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on Tuesday called the incident shocking and said the perpetrators must “answer for their crime”.

The attack on Volkov will probably worsen the already strained relations between Russia and Lithuania, a small EU country and Nato member of 2.8 million people, which borders Russia and Belarus and has become a base for Russian and Belarusian opposition figures.

After the assault, Volkov vowed to continue the struggle against Putin and urged Russians to turn up in big numbers for an election day protest.