Posted on 11/29/2006 7:04:32 AM PST by ketelone
By Guy Faulconbridge Wed Nov 29, 6:04 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Yegor Gaidar, architect of Russia's market reforms, was being treated in a Moscow hospital on Wednesday after coming close to death with a mystery ailment during a visit to Ireland, friends and family said.
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Gaidar, 50, who unleashed economic shock therapy before the dust had settled on the ruins of the Soviet Union, fell unconscious with unexplained symptoms on November 24 during a visit to Dublin to present his new book -- Death of the Empire.
"He lost consciousness for three hours and was taken to intensive care for a long time where doctors were fearful for his life," Gaidar's daughter Maria, an opposition activist, told Reuters.
"He is in Moscow and doctors are trying to come up with a diagnosis but they can't find one. His condition is satisfactory and he is speaking but he looks very bad -- he looks pale and thin."
Maria Gaidar said that doctors were trying to diagnose "rather strange symptoms" including a nose bleed and loss of consciousness, but that she did not want to comment on a report in London's Financial Times that he may been poisoned.
Gaidar, who now heads the Institute for the Economy in Transition, fell ill a day after former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital from radiation poisoning.
Litvinenko, a critic of the Kremlin, left a letter blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for his death. The Kremlin denies any involvement.
RESTRAINED CRITIC
A tubby economist who became reform commissar and acting prime minister for former president Boris Yeltsin, Gaidar provoked awe and antipathy for freeing prices in 1992 and for launching the first wave of privatizations after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Anatoly Chubais, a very close former colleague who went on to become Yeltsin's chief-of-staff, told reporters that doctors thought Gaidar's illness may not be natural.
"Yegor Gaidar on 24 November was in the balance between life and death. Could this be simply some sort of natural illness? According to what the most professional doctors, who have first- hand knowledge of the situation, say: No," Chubais said.
Quietly spoken and more at home with his economics books than in Russia's turbulent politics, Gaidar has made restrained criticism of Putin's economic policies.
Chubais, target of an assassination attempt in 2005, made a link between Gaidar's illness and the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and Litvinenko's death.
"For me there is no doubt that the deathly chain Politkovskaya-Litvinenko-Gaidar, which miraculously was not finished, would have been extremely attractive for the supporters of an unconstitutional, forceful change of power in Russia," said Chubais.
and another one bites the dust ....
Putin is up to something.
Hahahah I completely missed that when i read the article. Good eye!
Which previously unknown member of the periodic table will it be this time? Promethium? Roegentium? UnunHexium?
This is what happens when you cross GasPutin.
"On the day he first felt sick, Litvinenko said he had two meetings, the first with an unnamed Russian and Andrei Lugovoy, a KGB colleague and bodyguard to former Russian Prime Minster Yegor Gaidar."
Another Putin poisoning? Putey looks so innocent and boyish but his heart is devious.
"Do you want me to talk?"
"No, Mr. Bond...I want you to die!"
You forgot to include the female reporter, whose murder Litvinenko was investigating.
Indeed: who is next?
That's right! Anna Politovskaya!!!
I'll have to fix it now...
How's that?
Boy how spur of the moment comments can deservedly come back to bite the public figures that say them. Bush said he looked into Putins soul; and what a frightening thought that is.
Yep.
BTW, I've heard that the lethal dosage of Polonium-201 (?) is .666 micrograms.
I NEVER TRUSTED PUTIN~
Name is Vladamer right?
Innocent and boyish?
I think his eyes are as cold as any I've seen.
I've never looked into his eyes but he still has that boyish quality that could be appealing if you didn't know the truth of the devil coming as an angel of light to deceive us. Putin is a deceiver.
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