Navalny's friend Volkov wants to overthrow Putin with his team. In the interview he talks about the danger posed by the Russian president and the work of the Russian opposition.
They are being honored for their “non-violent fight against a brutal dictatorship”: At the Ludwig Erhard Summit on Tegernsee today, Julija Navalnaya will accept the “Media Freedom Prize” for herself and her late husband. Leonid Volkov is one of the couple's closest confidants. We spoke to him at the summit about what should happen next with the Russian opposition.
Mr. Volkov, Russian spies wanted to carry out attacks in Bavaria. Has Putin's war now arrived here too?
Yes. What else is supposed to happen? Why didn't people already understand this with the Tiergarten murder in 2019? Or Putin's disinformation campaigns? Why didn't Germany have enough when AfD members of the Bundestag went to Crimea at the Kremlin's expense? Putin has long targeted the entire West. Thank God these spies' plans failed. But there will be new attempts. Do you want to wait until they are successful?
Putin is also said to have sent his men to you in Lithuania: you were recently attacked with a hammer. How are you doing?
Good. Last week the cast was taken off my arm and my leg is working again.
Navalny confidant Volkov was attacked with a hammer
And psychologically? Do you often look over your shoulder to see if you are being followed?
Honestly no. Maybe I'm too optimistic, maybe I'm not quite right (
laughs
). So far I haven't suffered any trauma and haven't changed anything in my work. The perpetrators' goal was to scare me - I don't begrudge them that.
It wasn't long ago that one of your closest friends died...
...You mean: was murdered.
Have you gotten over the shock?
I don't know. Alexei and I had this one habit: If the Kremlin did something stupid again, I would send him a letter to the prison. Just yesterday I wrote something down and thought: I definitely have to send this to Alexei. This happens every now and then. It takes me a moment to remember that he is no longer there. I guess this wound will only get bigger as time goes on. We will only understand in five or ten years how big it really was, how important it was for the future of Russia. When Putin is gone, when we finally have a democratic Russia - then he will be particularly missed.
Do you wish he hadn't gone back to Russia?
That was never up for debate. He has never done anything illegal, which is why he should hide abroad.
Now he is dead, and almost all notable resistance members are in exile. Is there still a Russian opposition at all?
Yes, of course. These are, for example, the 40,000 people who came to Alexei's funeral. They all knew how dangerous it was - and were still brave enough to accept Putin's punishments.
Fight against Putin: 140 employees in Navalny's team
And what does your work look like? Do you have a grand plan to overthrow Putin?
We have around 140 employees working on around 20 different projects: We develop encrypted channels to communicate with activists in Russia, create opinion polls, sanctions lists and support independent politicians - but our big plan is called Yulia Navalnaya. Now it's all about helping her on her path as an international politician. And then it's up to her what happens next and what priorities she will set in the fight against Putin.
Russia's opposition consists of lone fighters. Why have strong personalities like Khodorkovsky, Kasparov and Navalny never joined forces?
Navalny was never a lone fighter. His team consists of many capable politicians. Of course there are also opposition members who do not belong to our camp. That's a good thing, we're not Putin's United Russia party. We are different people with different opinions, ideas and goals. It would be pointless to combine all opposition forces into one force: coalitions always mean compromises, and these in turn require compromises on the part of one's own supporters. That may work in a parliamentary democracy, but in Russia there are no free elections and no changes of government.
Nevertheless, they all have the same goal: get rid of Putin. What has to happen for that? Does Ukraine have to win the war? Or should the pressure come from within Russia?
Everything. There is no single solution to defeat Putin, otherwise it would have been found long ago. The pressure has to come from all sides. People under pressure become stressed. Stressed people make mistakes. Putin must be fought on the battlefield and on Russia's streets. It is naive to think that Western sanctions and arms supplies are enough and the Russians can just sit and wait for him to fall. Putin is the greatest threat to the world order since Adolf Hitler. That's why, as Churchill said back then, it takes blood, sweat and tears.