The secret of what happened to Abramovich and the long history of Russian poisoning

The alleged poisoning was directed, apparently, against one of the Russian oligarchs with the greatest international projection. This story can only arrest Russia, a country that has been blamed for dozens of poisonings in the last century.

At first glance, the story is strange: Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea football club, and Ukrainian negotiators involved in closed-door peace talks may have been poisoned after a meeting in Kyiv. All of them reportedly had symptoms such as flaking of the skin, eye irritation and pain that caused them to cry.

Can it be said to be poisoned? ᲜReally not; The three men were too busy to deliver the samples quickly to German toxicologists. And their symptoms, which had never been life-threatening, improved. So, as a full-fledged Russian secret, the truth may never be known.

But the Kremlin has strong enough experience that poisoning is a convincing cause, as the history of such a century dates back to 1921 with the founding of the Moscow X Poisoning Laboratory by Vladimir Lenin.

Multiple poisoning

Names, leaders, and perhaps ideologies have changed over time, but the current regime of Vladimir Putin has been blamed for the multiple poisonings of Kremlin opponents. In fact, he is accused of using the nerve agent Novichok.

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is accused of trying to assassinate opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who crashed on a domestic flight in August 2020 and survived only because he was able to come to Germany with specialists for treatment. FSB agent Navalny later reported the poison “inside the seams” of his underwear.

A couple of years ago, two military intelligence officers from the General Staff of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) traveled to Salisbury, UK, although their intention was not to admire the Gothic needle. The cathedral, at a height of 123 meters, as later claimed. They sprayed Novichok on the door handle of the house of deserter and former colleague Sergei Skripal, which was transferred to a bottle of disguised perfume.

It was March 2018 and Sergei’s daughter Julia was visiting. Hours after the officers’s visit, the couple was found in a park bench in downtown Wiltshire with foam in their mouths, causing them to periodically lose consciousness.

They were lucky and survived. Like Navalny, they were treated in time and the poison dose was low. Not so lucky was Down Sturgess, a British woman whose partner found a discarded perfume bottle in the bin and gave it as a gift. He was shot in the wrist in July 2018, became ill in 15 minutes and died a few days later.

The incidents are so conspicuous that they can be easily recalled. Maybe it is the intention that they focus on causing fear.

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium tea, leading to a slow and dramatic death in London in 2006. The same thing happened to the Bulgarian refugee Georgy Markov, but with a poison umbrella in 1979, an operation in which he is accused of being a KGB member. Took part.

The goal is not always to kill the victim. Labor MP Chris Bryant has revealed that in 2009, when he was foreign minister, he became seriously ill from food poisoning during an official visit to Russia. He learned that he had experienced “the usual irritants that the FSB addresses to ‘difficult’ guests.”

Attacks in Ukraine

Episodes of poisoning have not been heard in Ukraine either: Presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was in his 50s when a presidential candidate confronted a pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, but became ill during the campaign and his face was suddenly disfigured. .

Scientists have concluded that this transformation was the result of dioxin poisoning, but it is unknown who did it. The former head of Yushchenko’s staff blamed Russia for the attack, but this was never confirmed. In any case, he could not stop it: Yushchenko won over his opponent and ran for president for one term.

In this latest episode, the poisoned allies – it is unclear who – this time blamed Moscow’s tough and militant supporters, who they say Wall Street Journal, Who published an exclusive, “wanted to sabotage this action by negotiating an end to the war.” Given the long and vague history of poisoning, this is a compelling explanation. There are already many that are convincing.

A more interesting question would be who could have ordered such an operation. The Kremlin has always denied involvement in the poisoning. But only the state has the right to use such deadly and complex substances.

In addition, the growing centralization of Russian state power under Putin leads to the conclusion that the subordinate must be very bold to order such a conspiracy against a high-ranking oligarch without permission from above. If poisoning.

It is undoubtedly dark matter.

Translated by Emma Reverter.