VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Two men have been arrested in Poland on suspicion of attacking a Russian activist Leonid Volkov – an ally of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny — on orders from foreign intelligence services, officials said Friday.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk later said on the social platform He said the Poles had ties to circles of extremist football fans.
Volkov was attacked on March 12 outside his home in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where he lives in exile. The attacker smashed one of the windows of his car, sprayed tear gas in his eyes and hit him with a hammer, police said at the time.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced the arrest of two people to reporters in Vilnius and thanked Poland for its work.
“Two people have been arrested in Poland on suspicion of hitting Russian opposition leader Leonid Volkov. I thank the Republic of Poland for the excellent work it has done. I discussed this with the Polish President and thanked them for their excellent cooperation,” Nausėda said.
Both suspects are Polish citizens previously known to police in their home countries. They traveled to Vilnius before the attack on Volkov and then returned to Warsaw, Lithuania’s deputy police chief Saulius Briginas said.
He said they were arrested on April 3 during an operation in which Lithuanian police took part.
Lithuania expects them to be handed over in May, chief prosecutor Justas Laucius told reporters. If convicted on charges of causing bodily harm, they face up to three years in prison.
In Poland, Joanna Adamowicz, the spokesperson for a Warsaw court, said the two men had been arrested until May 13 on suspicion that “they had organized an attack on the territory of the Lithuanian Republic and caused damage to the health of Russian citizens .” citizen LW,” while he was “active in an organized group and carrying out the orders of the special services of a foreign country.”
Volkov’s surname is spelled with a “W” in Polish.
The court in Warsaw’s Praga district decided to extradite them to Lithuania for criminal investigation on the condition that they face any possible punishment in Poland, Adamowicz said in an email to The Associated Press.
Their lawyers have filed complaints and the files have been sent to the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, she said. It was not immediately clear how long the appeals could take.
Poland’s Central Police Bureau of Investigation confirmed that its officers worked with Lithuanian police to arrest two people suspected of attacking a Russian opposition activist in Lithuania in March.
The developments came a day after Poland announced the arrest of a Polish man suspected of preparing to spy on behalf of Russian military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“There will be no leniency for employees of the Russian services,” Poland’s Tusk said, referring to both cases.
Volkov said on . out.”
“As for the details, we will find out soon. I can’t wait to find out!” Volkov wrote.
Volkov suffered a broken arm in the brutal attack and was hospitalized. He accused then-“accomplices” of Russian President Vladimir Putin of responsibility for the attack and vowed to continue his opposition work.
The attack took place almost a month after Navalny’s unexplained death in a remote penal colony in the Arctic. He was Russia’s best-known opposition figure and Putin’s fiercest critic. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021 and was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated.
Opposition figures and Western leaders blamed his death on the Kremlin – something officials in Moscow vehemently rejected.
Navalny’s funeral in the Russian capital on March 1 drew thousands of supporters, a rare show of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid an unabated and brutal crackdown on dissent. Navalny’s widow, Yulia, vowed to continue his work.
Volkov used to be in charge of Navalny’s regional offices and election campaigns. He ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and tried to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential elections. Volkov left Russia several years ago under pressure from the authorities.
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Scislowska reported from Warsaw, Poland.
