A close associate of the late
Russian opposition leader
Alexei
Navalny
accused Russian President Vladimir Putin's "
henchmen
" on Wednesday of being behind a
brutal attack
that left him
hospitalised
.
Police said an assailant attacked
Leonid Volkov
on Tuesday as he arrived in a car at his Vilnius home, 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.
Volkov suffered a broken arm "and for now he cannot walk because of the severe bruising from the hammer blows," according to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.
He was hospitalised, but later released, and vowed Wednesday to keep up his work.
"We will work, we will not give up," Volkov said in a video posted on Telegram. "It was a characteristic bandit greeting from Putin's henchmen." This seemed to be a reference to both Putin's thuggish style and his stint as a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in 1990s when it was considered one of the criminal cities in Russia.
Police have launched a criminal investigation.
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