Exiled Alexei Navalny ally vows to ‘by no means quit’ combating Putin

An exiled ally of Alexei Navalny has vowed to ‘never give up’ fighting Vladimir Putin to ensure the late Russian opposition leader’s sacrifice is ‘not in vain’.

Leonid Volkov, who was speaking after a horrific hammer and tear gas attack outside his Lithuania home in March, described his friend’s death as an ‘open wound in our hearts’.

Navalny died at the age of 47 in an Arctic prison camp in February.

Volkov insisted there was ‘no one magic trick’ to topple Putin but called on Ukraine‘s Western allies to send more weapons to the front line and not consider negotiating with the Russian leader.

He told the BBC: ‘If there are 50 things we can do, we have to do all 50 of them, if you do 49, that’s not enough, because that’s the greatest threat to the world that we’ve seen in 80 years.’

Leonid Volkov, Alexei Navalny’s top aide, speaking in March. The exiled ally of Navalny has vowed to ‘never give up’ fighting Vladimir Putin to ensure the late Russian opposition leader’s sacrifice is ‘not in vain’

Navalny pictured at a St Petersburg rally in 2012. He died at the age of 47 in an Arctic prison camp in February

Vladimir Putin pictured at a press conference in China yesterday. Volkov insisted there was ‘no one magic trick’ to topple Putin but called on Ukraine ‘s Western allies to send more weapons to the front line and not consider negotiating with the Russian leader

Navalny’s aide accepted there was ‘no substitution’ for the late politician but that his wife Yulia Navalnaya was considered by ‘everybody’ as the new ‘charismatic’ leader of the opposition movement.

Volkov added that Navalnaya had not wanted to be seen as the heir to her husband, who many allies, branded extremists by authorities, believe was murdered by Putin.

On the Russian leader, Volkov pointed out that he had no boundaries and was killing people across the continent, on the front line and even in Russia.

He added that Putin’s recent displays of strength were a front and he urged Western leaders not to be fooled by it.

The attack on Volkov’s home in Vilnius, Lithuania, took place on March 12 and saw an assailant smash a window of his car, spray tear gas into his eyes and start hitting him with a hammer, according to Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.

Photos of Volkov’s injuries revealed he suffered a black eye, a red mark on his forehead and bleeding on his leg, which had soaked through his jeans. 

The opposition figure claimed that the message behind the attack on his property had been that his enemies knew where he was and they could harm him if they wanted to. 

Volkov was a close ally of Navalny, working as the late leader’s ex-chief of staff and as chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation until 2023.

Yulia Navalnaya (pictured, in Berlin on election day in March) widow of Alexey Navalny believes the Kremlin ordered her husband’s murder

Photos of Volkov’s injuries after his house was attacked in March revealed he suffered a black eye and a red mark on his forehead

Volkov was a close ally of Alexei Navalny, (pictured during his 2017 trial in the Tverskoy court of the city in Moscow) working as the late leader’s ex-chief of staff and as chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation until 2023

Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his regional offices were designated as ‘extremist organisations’ by the Russian government that same year.

Volkov used to be in charge of the regional offices. He left Russia under pressure from the authorities.

Navalny’s death, reported by penitentiary officials on Feb. 16, sent shockwaves around the globe.

Russian authorities say Navalny died in the Arctic prison of natural causes, but his wife Yulia Navalnaya has accused Putin of having him killed – an accusation the Kremlin vehemently rejects.

Recently US intelligence backed up Putin’s claims, determining that the Russian President probably didn’t order the opposition politician to be killed, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

The Journal said Washington had not absolved the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Navalny’s death however, given the opposition politician had been targeted by Russian authorities for years, jailed on charges the West said were politically motivated, and had been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.

The Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.

The assailant smashed a window of Volkov’s car (pictured) sprayed tear gas into his eyes and started hitting him with a hammer, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said

Alexei Navalny seen on a screen via a video link from the IK-3 penal colony above the Arctic circle during a hearing of his complaint on restrictions placed on which books and reading material he can access in prison, at the Supreme Court in Moscow on January 11, 2024

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is detained by Russian police officers during a march to protest against the alleged impunity of law enforcement agencies in central Moscow on June 12, 2019

The mothers of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his widow Yulia Navalnaya, Lyudmila and Alla, stand in front of Navalny’s grave on March 2, 2024, the day after his funeral at Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow

Reuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been ‘broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Departmentâs intelligence unit.’

The U.S. assessment was based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of Navalny’s death and how it overshadowed Putinâs re-election in March, the paper cited some of its sources as saying.

It cited Volkov as calling the U.S. findings naive and ridiculous.