VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Two Polish citizens have been detained in Poland on suspicion of attacking Russian activist Leonid Volkov, an ally of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in Lithuania, officials said on Friday.
Volkov was attacked on March 12 outside his home in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where he lives in exile. The attacker smashed one of his car’s windows, sprayed tear gas into his eyes and hit him with a hammer, police said at the time.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced the arrests to reporters in Vilnius and thanked Poland for its work.
“Two people have been detained in Poland on suspicion of beating Russian opposition leader Leonid Volkov. I thank the Republic of Poland for the excellent work it has done. I have discussed this with the Polish president and thanked them for their excellent cooperation,” Nausėda said.
Both the suspects are Polish citizens previously known to police in their homeland. They traveled to Vilnius before the attack on Volkov and returned to Warsaw afterward, according to Lithuania’s deputy police chief, Saulius Briginas.
He said they were detained on April 3 in an operation in which Lithuanian police participated.
Lithuania expects them to be handed over in May, chief prosecutor Justas Laucius told reporters. If convicted they face up to three years in prison.
In Poland the Central Investigation Bureau of Police confirmed that its officers worked with Lithuanian police to arrest two people suspected in an attack on a Russian opposition activist in Lithuania in March, though it did not name Volkov.
Norbert Wolinski, the spokesperson for the Warsaw-Praga district prosecutor’s office, confirmed to The Associated Press that two people were detained in Poland on a European arrest warrant initiated by Lithuania and the case is being reviewed by a court. Wolinski would not provide any other details.
The developments came a day after Poland announced the arrest of a man suspected of being ready to spy on behalf of Russia’s military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Volkov said on X, formerly Twitter, that he didn’t know the details of the arrest, but “saw how energetically and persistently the Lithuanian police have worked over the past month on this case” and was “very glad that this work has paid off.”
“As for the details, we will find them out soon. Can’t wait to find out!” Volkov wrote.
Volkov suffered a broken arm in the brutal attack and was hospitalized. He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” at the time of responsibility in the attack and vowed to keep up his opposition work.
The attack on Volkov took place nearly a month after Navalny’s unexplained death in a remote Arctic penal colony. 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 prison term there on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated.
Opposition figures and Western leaders laid the blame on the Kremlin for his death - something officials in Moscow vehemently rejected.
His funeral in the Russian capital on March 1 drew thousands of supporters, a rare show of defiance in Putin’s Russia amid an unabating and ruthless crackdown on dissent. Navalny’s widow, Yulia, vowed to continue her late husband’s work.
Volkov used to be in charge of Navalny’s regional offices and election campaigns. He ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and sought to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election. Volkov left Russia several years ago under pressure from the authorities.
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Scislowska reported from Warsaw, Poland.
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