Former Russian PM Gaidar Says Enemies of Kremlin Poisoned Him

Mos News
Dec. 07, 2006

Former Russian premier Yegor Gaidar thinks the strange illness he caught while in Dublin last month may be a try by enemies of the Kremlin to kill him, Reuters news agency reported Thursday. The symptoms of a mysterious illness that maid him bleeding from the nose and mouth pointed to poisoning, he said.

He collapsed at an Irish university conference on Nov. 24, the day after former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko, a Kremlin critic, died in a London hospital from radiation poisoning.

Gaidar was found bleeding from the nose and throwing up, pale and unconscious at the moment. He said that had begun to feel unwell after eating a simple breakfast of fruit and a cup of tea.

The following morning he regained consciousness and was able to get out of his hospital bed. He went back to Russia for treatment.

Gaidar’s spokesman on Tuesday quoted the Russian doctors treating him as saying the illness was most likely caused by a toxic factor but said they had refrained from using the term “poisoning” though Gaidar said that was his suspicion.

“One of the possible explanations that an unprofessional mind inevitably comes up with in such a situation is poisoning,” he said. “If this was attempted murder, politics was behind it.”

Although Gaidar does not think there is the Kremlin complicity in this case. “After the death of Alexander Litvinenko on Nov. 23 in London, another violent death of a famous Russian on the following day is the last thing that the Russian authorities would want,” he said.

“Most likely that means that some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes of this event, those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the West.”

Ex-KGB agent Litvinenko, a critic of the Kremlin, left a letter blaming President Vladimir Putin for his death. The Kremlin denies any involvement.