Lithuania said an attack in Vilnius on Leonid Volkov, a former close aide to late Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, "likely" organized by Moscow as part of a series of provocations in the Baltic country aimed at intimidating President Vladimir Putin's opponents abroad.
Volkov was attacked late on March 12 with a meat hammer by an unidentified assailant in the Lithuanian capital, leaving him bloodied, with a broken arm and other injuries.
Lithuania's intelligence services said on March 13 that the assault was "likely" an operation "organized and implemented by Russia, the purpose of which was to stop the implementation of Russian opposition projects."
President Gitanas Nauseda took that assessment a step further, saying the attack was clearly preplanned and appeared to be related to other provocations against Lithuania, where Volkov, Navalny's ex-chief of staff and a former chairman of the Kremlin critic's Anti-Corruption Foundation, has lived since going into exile in 2019 as he feared for his security in Russia.
"I can only say one thing to Putin: Nobody is afraid of you here," Nauseda said in commenting on the attack.
Russian dissidents who have fled their homeland amid a brutal crackdown on dissent by Putin have often warned they are being targeted with threats and attacks.
The death of Navalny -- Putin's most vocal critic -- last month while being held in an Arctic prison on convictions widely seen as politically motivated has only served to heighten those fears.
Volkov told the independent Meduza media outlet just hours before the attack that he felt a growing sense of unease over his safety since Navalny's death under suspicious circumstances was announced on February 16.
"The main risk now is that we will all be killed," he told Meduza.
Still, Volkov vowed to continue his fight against Putin despite the attack.
"I will keep working and I won't give up," Volkov said in a video released on his Telegram channel after being discharged from a Vilnius hospital.
"They wanted to turn me into a schnitzel. Naturally, with a meat hammer. A man attacked me right in the front yard of my house," Volkov said.
"He hit my leg 15 times, but somehow, my leg remained intact. It hurts to walk, but they say that there is no fracture. However, he broke my arm," Volkov said, adding that this was a "characteristic gangster greeting from Putin."
Meduza quoted journalist Sergei Parkhomenko as saying Volkov lived in a small community on the outskirts of Vilnius. Police had cordoned off the road where the attack occurred and continued their investigation as of midday on March 13.
Lithuanian police commissioner Renatas Pozela said on March 13 that law enforcement officers were devoting "massive resources" to investigate the attack, which sent shock waves across the tiny Baltic state, which is flanked by Russian ally Belarus to the east, and the Russian exclave of Kalliningrad to the west.
"News about Leonid's assault are shocking. Relevant authorities are at work. Perpetrators will have to answer for their crime," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The chairman of the Lithuanian parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Zygimantas Pavilionis, told the Delfi news agency that the attack on Volkov showed Lithuania must provide Russian and Belarusian opposition politicians and activists living in the country with protection and safety.
Lawmaker and former cabinet minister Giedrius Surplys said Putin "just reminded us that his arms are long, and even Lithuania, which has turned into an asylum for Russian and Belarusian opposition, is not safe."
"I would say [the attack] is linked to the upcoming presidential election in Russia, where Putin is doing his best to demonstrate his power by murdering Navalny [in prison last month] and now demonstrating it abroad," Surplys said.
The attack was first reported by Kyra Yarmysh, Navalny's former spokeswoman and the secretary of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), who said on X that an unidentified man broke the window of Volkov’s car and sprayed tear gas in his eyes before proceeding to hit him with a meat hammer.
Photos of the injured Volkov and his damaged car were also posted on Navalny's team on Telegram.
FBK director Ivan Zhdanov later published a photo of the politician being carried into an ambulance on a stretcher.