Leonid Volkov: HOW TO FIGHT AGAINST PUTIN AND HIS WAR FROM EXILE

COURAGE! PART 4





Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Leonid Volkov





HOW TO FIGHT AGAINST PUTIN AND HIS WAR FROM
EXILE





After Alexej Navalny’s death in a Russian prison camp in
2024 his Anti Corruption Foundation continues its work against
dictatorship from outside the country.   
            


 


Their political lives are closely intertwined: Leonid Volkov was
the chief of staff to the leader of the Russian opposition Alexej
Navalny. When Navalny died in February 2024 his wife Yulia took
over his role to speak up against Putin’s dictatorship. Her right
hand man, again, is Leonid Volkov, who already managed Navalny’s
political campaigns at the beginning of the 2010s.
Almost four years after the war against Ukraine started Volkov
will explain how the Anti-Corruption Foundation continues to
influence the Russian public from abroad. How do you conduct
opinion polls about Putin’s popularity or the support for his war
without endangering the Russian respondents? And: How many
Russians really support Putin? Spoiler: 10 Percent. 30 Percent
are actively against him and the vast majority watches silently
until this regime falls. Leonid Volkov will explain the Russian
mindset, the scenario for a possible end of Putin’s war and his
regime.





Leonid Volkov is the political director of the
Anti-Corruption Foundation, the leading organisation of Russian
anti-Putin and anti-war resistance movement, founded by the late
Alexei Navalny. Volkov also serves as chief of staff for Yulia
Navalnaya, who took over the leadership after her husband was
murdered by Vladimir Putin. He was campaign manager and chief of
staff for Navalny’s Moscow mayoral campaign of 2013 and
presidential campaign of 2018. Since 2019 he has to reside
outside of Russia. There are 11 politically motivated criminal
cases against him initiated by Putin’s regime; he’s sentenced to
18 years behind bar in absentia.





Tessa Szyszkowitz, is an award winning Austrian
journalist and author living in London. She writes regularly for
Falter, Tagesspiegel and NZZ am Sonntag. Her last book so far was
“Echte Engländer – Britain and Brexit” (2018). She is a curator
at Kreiskyforum and Distinguished Fellow of Rusi, the Royal
United Services Institute. She received a FPA Media Award for
Best Story of the Year 2025.