Ex-Russian PM Poisoned

Sky News ^ | November 30, 2006 | Staff

[MadIvan]

Doctors treating a former Russian Prime Minister for a grave illness believe he was deliberately poisoned, an aide has revealed.

Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital after becoming ill on a trip to Ireland a week ago.

"Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them in Gaidar's body," said aide Valery Natarov.

"So obviously we're talking about poisoning (and) it was not natural poisoning."

He said Mr Gaidar's condition could not have been the result of food poisoning.

The news follows the death in London of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko from radiation poisoning.

Sky News correspondent Alex Rossi said: "It is extremely strange, another bizarre twist to this story.

"Mr Gaidar is being kept in an undisclosed hospital and his condition is described as stable."

Mr Gaidar served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s.

He began vomiting and fainted during a conference in Ireland on Friday and was rushed into intensive care.

Earlier this week Anatoly Chubais, head of the national electricity monopoly, said he suspected a link between Mr Gaidar's illness, Mr Litvinenko's death and last month's murder of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

[Timedrifter]

Gaidar himself as well as his daughther both say they suspect anti Putin forces are responsible. Gaidar criticized some economic polices of the Putin government, but was in no way a big critic of him personally.

[Mo1]

connect them yes .. what happens after that is another story .. and not just for the Brits

[VeniVidiVici]

LOL! Any day now this will be blamed on George Bush for trying to set Putin up.

Funny thing is I don't think Putin is doing this. It's even a bit over the top for KGB.

[Enchante]

"Stalin was more subtle than Putin"

Well there was that small episode of the ice pick to Trotsky's brain..... I wouldn't call Stalin subtle, but Putin isn't exactly a Tolstoyan pacifist, either.....

[Pirate21]

Stalin was more subtle than Putin.

Why be subtle when you want to send a message?

[ChurtleDawg]

Is his name pronounced like "gay-dar"?

lol

[Charles Martel]

"Today I settle all family business."

[sissyjane]

>>business for protection of rich Russians in England - <,


Wouldn't that involve Berezofsky?

[MadIvan]

Stalin was more subtle than Putin.

I wouldn't go that far. Recall what happened to Trotsky?

Regards, Ivan

[Paleo Conservative]

Seriously.

[Yaelle]

I think "The Death of the Cold War" died from these poisonings too.

[GSlob]

Wasn't there a big "poison affair" in the high society of ancien regime France a few centuries back? But there, IIRC, it was all about inheritances.

[ReignOfError]

Putin behaving badly I think.

I'm beginning to wonder. Putin, and the old KGB apparatus in general, are a great many things. Stupid is not one of them. To pull off another poisoning while the last one is so centered in the spotlight would be dumb. The poisoning of Georgy Markiv, for example, was almost perfect -- it was detected only because of a technical glitch (the ricin pellet didn't dissolve like it was supposed to) and an extremely astute London medical examiner who spotted a tiny pin prick that would most often have been overlooked.

Unless Putin is planning to consolidate absolute power soon enough that he doesn't think he needs to worry about public opinion any more. That's the scary thought.

I have to remain open to the possibility that these poisonings are the work of others trying to undermine Putin -- not because I believe him when he says so, but because it makes sense. I know if I were a Russian with a rival I'd like to kill off, now would be the time, because the initial suspicion would fall far from me.

[sissyjane]

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2006/1129/breaking82.htm

[Patrick1]

Mark Steyn said Russia was a dying country but this is ridiculous.

[struwwelpeter]

Egor Gaidar is the grandson of the communist author Arkady Gaidar (Golikov), who fought at 15 during the Russian revolution, and even at that tender age - as a platoon commander - participated in round-ups and murders of peasants. After the revolution he wrote cloyingly sick novels with Holden Caulfield-style young commies. He was pretty much an icon for Bolsheviks, and probably the reason his grandson got elected in the early 1990s.

Supposedly Arkady Gaidar died in battle during the early days of WW II, but in 1979 his biographer (Glushchenko), while looking into the "official" heroic version of Gaidar's death, found some contrary evidence. There was an old woman in the Ukraine who claimed Arkady Gaidar wasn't killed by the Germans, but hanged as a deserter. Supposedly hid out for a month in her root cellar, and she even had momentos and notebooks from the author. She stated that he was picked up by an NKVD squad, and went kicking and screaming.

When Glushchenko presented his work on Gaidar for review, he was asked by a high-level, commie bureaucrat if he was tired of living a peaceful life, and so the biographer decided to drop that angle.

There weren't any Politkovskayas back then.

[popdonnelly]

"But Putin's grandfather was in charge of Stalin's personal security."

I wonder if he was involved in the assassinations of Kirov and Trotsky?

[DBrow]

"Various news reports have him getting better and being very sick."

alpha Amanitin? Phalloidin? Both toxins have you get ill, then better, then really ill, then a nasty exit.

But they are mushroom toxins and a physician should recognize the symptoms.

[DBrow]

"...over the top for KGB..."

And I can find no motive for Pelosi or even Kennedy so that lets them off...