Under Putin, russia becomes the world leader in number of political poisonings
In no other country is the government so actively trying to remove political opponents with the help of poisons, as in the terrorist country of russia. Moreover, they are often persecuted abroad. These are the results of a study conducted by the Global Project on the Study of Political Poisonings.
The report analyzed 77 cases over the past 90 years that had sufficient information on poisoning, symptoms and poisons. Sophia Browder, founder of Poisonreporting.org, emphasizes that only cases of poisoning of activists who can be considered political opponents of the regime (as opposed to crimes of a criminal or domestic nature) are taken into account. Many such cases remain unreported, especially in countries with authoritarian governments and dictatorships. For example, only two recorded cases in China indicate that there is simply no public information about this method of dealing with opponents.
In addition, in some cases, it is possible to determine that a person has been poisoned only if he is in another country, where there are no obstacles to studying his condition and publishing relevant information. This is, in particular, the case of Alexei Navalny, who felt unwell in russia and received first aid there, but it was possible to determine that he was poisoned by Novichok only after the politician was taken to a hospital in Germany.
During the 20th century, the world recorded a maximum of one case in individual years, but in the 21st, several poisonings per year often occurred several years in a row. A particularly sharp growth was observed in 2004-2006. (Five each year). Just in 2006, for example, former FSB employee Alexander Litvinenko died in London. The investigation and subsequent trial in Great Britain showed that Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium-210 as a result of a special FSB operation apparently authorized by vladimir putin.
"The increase in the number of recorded cases can be directly related to poisonings organized by russia after putin came to power in 1999, which began to use poison, once a distinctive tool of the KGB, to suppress opponents," the report says.
In total, 18 political poisonings were committed in russia. According to the compiled database, it is clear that "russia uses poisoning as a method of killing more often than any other state, and that many victims are hunted in Europe." This, in particular, explains the fact that Great Britain ranks second in the number of detected cases - 10. In addition to Litvinenko, this is, for example, the story of Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
Five more cases were recorded in Germany, two each in France, Switzerland and Ukraine (with Viktor Yushchenko during the period when he was fighting for the post of president).
The persecution of opponents of the putin regime by the russian special services continues. In October, the French prosecutor's office began an investigation into the alleged poisoning of journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who spoke out against the war in Ukraine and left russia. In the summer, the former journalist of Novaya Gazeta Elena Kostyuchenko also told about the fact that they tried to poison her: according to her, it happened in the autumn of 2022, when she came to Germany after a business trip to Ukraine.