The recent attack on Leonid Volkov, a close associate of late Alexei Navalny, in Vilnius was likely a Russian-organized and carried out operation, Lithuania’s State Security Department said on Wednesday.
“The attack on Leonid Volkov, a member of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, in Vilnius on March 12, 2024 is a Russian-organized and carried out operation aimed at stopping the implementation of the Russian opposition’s projects that have to do with the forthcoming undemocratic Russian presidential election,” the SSD said in a statement.
Intelligence identifies likely scenarios as those with a 50-75 percent probability.
According to the SSD, the Kremlin regime views the opposition Anti-Corruption Foundation as the most dangerous opposition force capable of exerting real influence on Russia’s internal processes.
The Kremlin regularly collects information on members of this organization living abroad and has staged attacks that have endangered their lives or health, the intelligence service says.
“The list of potential targets for operations is very broad and includes politicians and public figures acting against the ruling Kremlin regime, assets belonging to them, historical monuments, symbols of statehood, infrastructure facilities, cultural and educational institutions,” the SSD said in the statement.
Since the spring of 2023, subjects of the Kremlin regime have been actively conducting psychological-informational operations against the Baltic states, which include kinetic actions, the department pointed out. These operations are aimed at creating panic within the Baltic societies and stopping activities against the Kremlin regime in the Baltic states.
“The executors of kinetic actions during psychological-informational operations organized by Russia are often individuals recruited on social media. The motives for these criminal acts may be ideological or the offer of a monetary reward,” the SSD said.
The SSD is working and exchanging information with the competent authorities during the pre-trial investigation being carried out by the Criminal Police Bureau into the attack on Volkov.
Volkov was assaulted on Tuesday night in a car on Zuvedru Street in Vilnius, close to his home. Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said that the attacker broke the car window, tear-gassed him and started hitting Volkov with a hammer.
The suspects have not yet been identified.
Source: BNS
(Reproduction of BNS information in mass media and other websites without written consent of BNS is prohibited.)