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Navalny's Moscow Chief Quits, Joins New Federal Project

Nikolai Lyaskin and Alexey Navalny / navalny.com

The head of opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s election campaign in Moscow, Nikolai Lyaskin, is leaving his post to start "a new federal project" with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Navalny has been holding campaign rallies across Russia as part of his bid for the presidency in March 2018, despite being legally barred from participating due to fraud charges that he says are politically motivated.

Lyaskin told the RBC business portal that he would leave his current position Dec. 4. On his Facebook page, he wrote that Sergei Boyko, Navalny’s former campaign manager in Novosibirsk, would replace him.

"I will remain on the team, but I will be involved in a big federal project that will take up an enormous amount of resources," he was cited by RBC as saying.

Neither Lyaskin nor another Navalny aide, Leonid Volkov, would give details about the new federal project.

"We're not publicizing it, for now, we will tell you in due time,” Volkov was quoted as saying by RBC.

Lyaskin suffered head injuries in September when an unidentified man struck him over the head with a lead pipe in Moscow.

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