Navalny Foundation accuses Khodorkovsky associate of ordering attack on Leonid Volkov
Russia’s opposition engaged in an online war of words today as one of its constituents accused another branch, also opposed to the policies of the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin, of ordering an attack on one of its members.
On Thursday, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) founded by dissident Alexei Navalny released a video accusing Leonid Nevzlin, an associate of former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of ordering an attack on his aide Leonid Volkov Navalny, last March in Lithuania.
Volkov was hospitalized after being beaten multiple times with a sledgehammer outside his home in Vilnius.
A Belarusian – who allegedly organized it – and two Poles were arrested for the attack.
Citing correspondence between an intermediary and Nevzlin, the FBK accused the latter that his original plan was to forcibly transfer Leonid Volkov from Lithuania to Russia and hand him over to the Russian authorities.
“Yes, it’s hard to believe. But, alas, it is true: Leonid Nevzlin was ready to pay $250,000 to the perpetrators who were going to cripple me and hand me over to the FSB,” the Russian security service“, Volkov himself wrote in his post.
Nevzlin rejected these accusations in his own post on Telegram, stressing that justice will prove their “absurdity”, arguing that they are “baseless”. In turn, he accused FBK of the recent project following “the Kremlin’s information policy.”
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in London after his release in 2013 from a decade in Russian prisons, defended Nevzlin, who has settled in Israel.
He called it his “business partner, partner and friend” for years. “Either it’s true, so Leonid Nevzlin went crazy, or it’s FSB provocations and it’s a lie, for which a lot of money was spent,” he added.
“I lean towards the second versionKhodorkovsky concluded, recalling that last week the Russian channel RT broadcast similar accusations against Nevzlin, but that report went unnoticed.
FBK disclaimed any association with RT.
The standoff is indicative of tensions within the Russian opposition, which has been searching for a new leader since the death of Alexei Navalny in prison last February. His supporters insist that Navalny was killed on the orders of the Kremlin.
Source :Skai
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