LONDON — Alexei Navalny was murdered on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the late opposition leader’s former chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.
Speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, Volkov said he had no doubt of the cause of the former Russian opposition leader’s death in February in an Arctic prison colony.
“Putin killed him. So on February 16, Vladimir Putin cold-bloodedly ordered Alexei Nalvany only to be murdered,” Volkov said. “It’ll take time for us to find out how exactly it happened and how exactly it was performed, but we have no doubt and it is not an issue of trust or versions, it’s a fact proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
Volkov said the organization Navalny founded will continue to gather information on the attack, having investigated the methods and means deployed by Putin’s regime to target other opponents in recent years.
Volkov was himself the victim of a brutal hammer attack a month after Navalny’s death that left him with a broken arm and head injuries outside his home in Lithuania, where he now lives in exile.
Three arrests have since been made, and the men accused of Volkov’s attack are due to appear in court. “What’s interesting for me is to learn who exactly ordered [the attack] and how much he was paid and, like, how this all was organized, like how large is the network and … how much the guy who was like the handler, who was the intermediary, was actually paid, because I have a suspicion that he stole 90 percent and this saved my life.”
Speaking at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Volkov said Putin considers the work of the political organization that Navalny founded — and where Volkov continues to serve as political director in exile — to be the “main threat to his regime.”
He vowed to support Nalvany’s widow, Yulia, in “whatever she decides to endeavour for the future of Russia.”
“The only way to make his enormous sacrifice not to be in vain is to build this beautiful European democratic Russia of the future that [Navalny] dreamed of. So that’s our goal … We are not going to give it up because this is for us the only way to defend and to promote his legacy now … And we always consider like our fight against Putin to be a marathon, not a sprint.”
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