Two men have been detained in Poland on suspicion of carrying out an attack on Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov – an associate of Alexei Navalny – in neighbouring Lithuania last month.
The suspects – who are Polish citizens, according to the Lithuanian authorities – are facing charges of acting on behalf of a foreign country’s security services.
News of their arrest was announced on Friday morning by Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda. He thanked his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda as well as the two countries’ law-enforcement agencies.
Volkov himself also thanked Poland and Lithuania for the work they had done in identifying the suspects. However, he added that it was also important to “investigate and to expose all the chain-of-command from Putin to the guy with the hammer” who attacked him.
Thanks a lot, Mr. President.
And great thanks to Lithuanian and Polish law enforcement agencies for the tremendous work they’ve done.It is of enormous importance to investigate and to expose all the chain-of-command from Putin to the guy with the hammer. https://t.co/Yai5DLqEN3
— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) April 19, 2024
Volkov served as chief of staff to Navalny during the latter’s election campaign in 2018, when he challenged Vladimir Putin for the presidency. In recent years, Volkov has been based in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
On 12 March this year, he was attacked with a hammer and tear gas outside his home in the city, leaving him with injuries, including a broken arm. At the time, Lithuania declared the incident to have been the work of Russia.
Soon after Nausėda’s announcement this morning, Polish police confirmed that, working with their Lithuanian counterparts, they had detained two people suspected of carrying out the attack. They later shared a video of armed officers conducting the raid that led to the arrests.
@CBSPolicji we współpracy z 🇱🇹 Policją, ustaliły tożsamość i miejsce pobytu podejrzanych o atak na rosyjskiego opozycjonistę 💪 Zatrzymano 2⃣ mężczyzn poszukiwanych ENA, których doprowadzono do @PK_GOV_PL Okręgowej Warszawa-Praga 🤝 https://t.co/8SRICVQxl6 https://t.co/6aqF2hnYs4 pic.twitter.com/gxcUUsZO0P
— Centralne Biuro Śledcze Policji (@CBSPolicji) April 19, 2024
The two men were subsequently brought before prosecutors and then placed in temporary detention, say the Polish police’s Central Investigation Bureau (CBŚP), a unit tasked with tackling organised crime.
A spokesman for the Warsaw court dealing with the case told Reuters that the suspects were accused of “acting in an organised group, executing the orders of the special services of a foreign country”, and of damaging the health of a Russian citizen in Lithuania.
The deputy head of Lithuania’s criminal police, Saulius Briginas, told the media that the suspects were both Polish citizens, reports Reuters. Lithuania’s prosecutor general, Justas Laucius, also identified them as Polish, according to broadcaster TVN.
Yesterday, Poland announced the detention of a Polish citizen accused of working on behalf of Russian military intelligence, including as part of a plan to assassinate Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to Poland. It remains unclear if that case is related to the arrests announced today.
Poland has arrested one of its own citizens on suspicion of cooperating with Russian intelligence, including on plans for an assassination attempt against @ZelenskyyUa while the Ukrainian president was travelling through Poland https://t.co/UIjlElXf2K
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 18, 2024
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Main image credit: Ivan Zhdanov/Telegram
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
