Didn’t the Ruskies recently take someone out with a polonium pellet?
(Just because you are not familiar with the practices and tools, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.)
If I remember correctly they (KGB?,FSB?) took out Alexander Litvinenko (a dissident) on 01 Nov 2006. After about three weeks of miserable suffering, Alexander Litvinenko lapsed into a coma and died. The poison was polonium-210, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 138.4 days. This isotope is only produced in a nuclear reactor. The world's largest maker of Po210 is Russia. It is a controlled substance and is insanely expensive. The British police have concluded that the Po was put in Litvinenko's tea during a meeting.
Mysteries involving Russia and politics are nothing unusual. Georgi Markov, the dissident writer was murdered with a ricin filled poison pellet from an umbrella rigged as a spring gun. Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukranian presidential candidate was poisoned with a high level of dioxin. Paul Khlebnikov, an American business journalist, was shot on a Moscow street when leaving his office, yet the case still remains unsolved.
There are rumors of a shadowy death squad made up of former KGB agents called “Dignity and Honor” who many believe may be responsible for these murders, attempted murders, and much more "extreme diplomacy".
Regards,
GtG