Crimes without borders

The attack with hammer blows and tear gas suffered in Lithuania by Leonid Volkov, a close collaborator of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died a month ago in a Siberian prison, represents a new example of the impunity with which Vladimir Putin's regime acts. in Europe against anyone whom he or his supporters consider a threat to their totalitarian project.

Volkov was ambushed by at least two people near his home in Vilnius, the capital of the Baltic Republic, a member country of the European Union.

Transferred to a hospital, he was treated for various injuries, including a broken arm.

The police and their elite anti-terrorist unit are investigating what happened, but the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, has already clearly pointed out the main suspect of being behind the criminal action: Putin.

This is the second incident of this type known in the European Union within approximately a month after the shooting murder last February in Villajoyosa (Alicante) of Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian military pilot assigned to the Ukrainian front who defected last year. summer.

The head of Russia's Foreign Espionage Service, Sergei Narishkin, said after learning of his execution in Spain that, from the moment he decided to flee the army, the murdered man was already a "moral corpse."

The names of Volkov and Kuzminov join an already long list of Putin opponents who for years have seen their lives cut short or threatened in European territory.

Their profiles are varied – from journalists to former military personnel, businessmen or former colleagues of the president – ​​but they all had one point in common: the Kremlin leader and his circle explicitly considered them enemies whose execution should also serve as a warning to the rest. of exiles and opponents.

At the same time, a message was sent to European governments that the Moscow regime does not hesitate when it comes to acting in territories outside its sovereignty.

This context puts the EU and the United Kingdom under the obligation to especially protect the lives of Russian refugees on their borders.

But also in the face of the situation of responding firmly – something announced without specifying by the Spanish Government following the murder of Kuzminov – to a strategy of terror that has already shown ample signs of audacity and cruelty.

Vladimir Putin, who is running for presidential re-election this Sunday with the opposition decimated and persecuted, is convinced that in Russia he can act without limits.

It would be very bad news if he thought he could do the same in the rest of Europe.