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The Polish National Prosecutor's Office has confirmed the arrest of lawyer Anatoly Blinov, the alleged organizer of the attack on Navalny ally Leonid Volkov of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). As the Polish agency reports, since Blinov’s arrest on Sep. 13, he has been charged on three counts. The most serious charge involves Blinov’s role in “directing the beating of Russian opposition politician Leonid V. motivated by V.’s nationality, political views, and political activities.” Blinov has been placed in custody for three months. His arrest was reported yesterday.
The attack against Volkov occurred on Mar. 12, 2024. On Apr. 3, Lithuanian investigators detained two Polish nationals: Igor K. and Maximilian K. The prosecutor charged them with “applying violence to Leonid V. for the reason of his nationality and political activities.” Both remain under arrest. In the months that followed, several more individuals were detained in connection with the case, which currently counts eight defendants, four of whom have been placed in pre-trial detention. Six of the defendants are Polish nationals, one is Belarusian, and the last one, Blinov, is Russian.
According to leaked communications revealed in journalistic reports published by both the Kremlin-aligned outlet RT and by the anti-Putin ACF, Blinov carried out tasks on behalf of Leonid Nevzlin, an exiled Russian-born Israeli billionaire and a long-time business associate of Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Nevzlin appears to have used Blinov to organize physical assaults against multiple exiled Russian opposition figures. Blinov reported back to Nevzlin on at least two “successful” attacks — one against Leonid Volkov, and another on Alexandra Petrachkova, the wife of Maxim Mironov, an economist who had posted unfavorable comments about Nevzlin on Twitter.
Screenshots of the correspondence show that Nevzlin not only ordered the attack on Petrachkova but also meticulously monitored its execution and the spread of information following the assault. After that attack, which was carried out on Sept. 1, 2023, Blinov and Nevzlin discussed a “nicer format in the Baltics” — apparently referring to a planned attack on Volkov in Vilnius. Blinov also wrote that he had given the attacker an “instruction to [make Volkov] kneel down and apologize while drooling blood.”
Later on, Blinov informed Nevzlin that he was starting to “track the package” — i.e. that he was carrying out the surveillance of Volkov — and that there was already a “corridor” in place for delivering the opposition figure across the border into Russia. Nevzlin responded, “It's time to do away with the moron.”
Leonid Nevzlin has denied organizing the attack on Volkov (though he made no such statement regarding the one on Petrachkova) and claimed that the conversations in question were initiated by Blinov himself. However, the published screenshots show Nevzlin expressing no surprise at Blinov's “provocative messages.” Instead, Nevzlin is shown to be actively engaging in discussions about the assaults — and issuing orders. Nevzlin has not disputed the authenticity of the correspondence.