Another Russian Political Poisoning? Yegor Gaidar “Stable and Improving”

Doctors treating former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who fell ill in Ireland last week, are saying that they believe he was poisoned. Valery Natarov, a spokesman for Gaidar, said today: "Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them, so obviously we're talking about poisoning…it was not natural poisoning.”

Medical officials have not yet been able to determine the specific cause of Gaidar’s illness. A spokesman for National University of Ireland at Maynooth, where the conference was held, said Wednesday that medical personnel treating him initially suspected complications from Gaidar's diabetes as the cause of his illness.

Gaidar, 50, returned from Ireland to Moscow for treatment earlier this week, and was feeling better as of today, Natarov said. "His condition is stable and improving. Doctors say there is no threat to his life at the moment." After he became sick, Gaidar’s aides requested more information from medical experts in Dublin.

Gaidar was at a conference in Dublin, Ireland to promote his book, The Death of Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia. During the conference, his nose began to bleed, then he started vomiting before he fainted. He was rushed to a nearby intensive care unit.

Gaidar was one of the leaders of a liberal opposition party who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin. He is an economist best known as the architect of the sweeping free-market, “shock therapy” reforms that were instituted in the early years of former President Boris Yeltsin's administration. He is one of the leaders of the liberal opposition party Union of Right Forces. Gaider heads a think-tank called the Institute for the Economy in Transition. Gaider has publicly criticized Putin's economic policies, but he is viewed as a marginal political figure.

Gaider’s daughter, Maria, is a well-known liberal youth activist and a fierce Kremlin critic. She responded to her father’s condition by saying, "The doctors think that they don't find any other reason of his condition that he was poisoned with some strange poison they cannot identify, but to have an official conclusion they're still waiting for the information of the doctors of Dublin." She stated that her father had eaten a "simple breakfast of fruit salad and a cup of tea." She speculated that if the diagnosis was that her father was poisoned deliberately, "it could be a political poisoning because there are no personal or business reasons why someone would want to do that." She told reporters that her father was speaking, but looked pale and thin.

His illness follows the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London just one day before Gaidar fell ill; however, as of the time of this writing, officials have not connected the two cases in any way. The Russian government and President Putin have strongly denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.

The Irish government said it had no reason to believe there was anything suspicious about Gaidar's illness.

For more information, see the Financial Times Article: Mystery Illness Hits Former Russian PM

MOSNEWS article: Top Russian Reformer Sees Plot Behind Ex-PM’s Illness