Toxic tea: Multiple Russians hit by suspected poisonings
Toxic tea: Multiple Russians hit by suspected poisonings
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FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, May 23, 2018, Yulia Skripal during an interview in London. Yulia Skripal says recovery has been slow and painful, in first interview since nerve agent poisoning. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this Friday, May 10, 2002 file photo, Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within” is photographed at his home in London. A former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency FSB, Col. Alexander Litvinenko defected and fled to London, where he fell violently ill in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this July 2006 file photo, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya is seen in Moscow. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alexei Sazonov, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 file photo, Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Appropriation Committee hearing on “Civil Society Perspectives on Russia.” Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, May 23, 2018 file photo, Yulia Skripal poses for the media during an interview in London. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this Thursday, June 25, 2020 file photo, Pyotr Verzilov, prominent member of the protest group Pussy Riot waits for his court hearing in a court in Moscow, Russia. Verzilov, a member of Russia’s protest group Pussy Riot, ended up in an intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning in 2018 and had to be flown to Berlin for treatment. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
A man holding a placard stands in a one-person picket in front of a building of a hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020. Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is on a hospital ventilator in a coma, after falling ill from a suspected poisoning, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Sofiychuk)
FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 file photo, Reporter Anna Politkovskaya attends a rally against war in Chechnya in downtown Moscow, seen in this October 2004 file photo. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Fyodor Savintsev, File)
FILE - In this Friday May 10, 2002 file photo Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within”, is photographed at his home in London. Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov’s killing follows the slaying over the past decade of several other high-profile critics of President Vladimir Putin and his policies. Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, 44, became sick after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006 and died three weeks later. Litvinenko had fallen out with the Russian government and became a strong critic of the Kremlin, obtaining political asylum after coming to Britain in 2000. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 29, 2016 file photo, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 35, Russian opposition activist poses for a photo in Moscow, Russia. Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. A journalist and associate of murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident. He suspects poisoning but no cause has been determined. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Dmitri Beliakov, File)
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FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, May 23, 2018, Yulia Skripal during an interview in London. Yulia Skripal says recovery has been slow and painful, in first interview since nerve agent poisoning. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, May 23, 2018, Yulia Skripal during an interview in London. Yulia Skripal says recovery has been slow and painful, in first interview since nerve agent poisoning. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this Friday, May 10, 2002 file photo, Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within” is photographed at his home in London. A former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency FSB, Col. Alexander Litvinenko defected and fled to London, where he fell violently ill in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this Friday, May 10, 2002 file photo, Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within” is photographed at his home in London. A former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency FSB, Col. Alexander Litvinenko defected and fled to London, where he fell violently ill in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this July 2006 file photo, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya is seen in Moscow. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alexei Sazonov, File)
FILE - In this July 2006 file photo, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya is seen in Moscow. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alexei Sazonov, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 file photo, Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Appropriation Committee hearing on “Civil Society Perspectives on Russia.” Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 file photo, Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Appropriation Committee hearing on “Civil Society Perspectives on Russia.” Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, May 23, 2018 file photo, Yulia Skripal poses for the media during an interview in London. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, May 23, 2018 file photo, Yulia Skripal poses for the media during an interview in London. A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with military grade nerve agent Novichok in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks in critical condition. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (Dylan Martinez/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - In this Thursday, June 25, 2020 file photo, Pyotr Verzilov, prominent member of the protest group Pussy Riot waits for his court hearing in a court in Moscow, Russia. Verzilov, a member of Russia’s protest group Pussy Riot, ended up in an intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning in 2018 and had to be flown to Berlin for treatment. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
FILE - In this Thursday, June 25, 2020 file photo, Pyotr Verzilov, prominent member of the protest group Pussy Riot waits for his court hearing in a court in Moscow, Russia. Verzilov, a member of Russia’s protest group Pussy Riot, ended up in an intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning in 2018 and had to be flown to Berlin for treatment. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
A man holding a placard stands in a one-person picket in front of a building of a hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020. Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is on a hospital ventilator in a coma, after falling ill from a suspected poisoning, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Sofiychuk)
A man holding a placard stands in a one-person picket in front of a building of a hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020. Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is on a hospital ventilator in a coma, after falling ill from a suspected poisoning, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Sofiychuk)
FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 file photo, Reporter Anna Politkovskaya attends a rally against war in Chechnya in downtown Moscow, seen in this October 2004 file photo. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Fyodor Savintsev, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 file photo, Reporter Anna Politkovskaya attends a rally against war in Chechnya in downtown Moscow, seen in this October 2004 file photo. An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Fyodor Savintsev, File)
FILE - In this Friday May 10, 2002 file photo Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within”, is photographed at his home in London. Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov’s killing follows the slaying over the past decade of several other high-profile critics of President Vladimir Putin and his policies. Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, 44, became sick after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006 and died three weeks later. Litvinenko had fallen out with the Russian government and became a strong critic of the Kremlin, obtaining political asylum after coming to Britain in 2000. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this Friday May 10, 2002 file photo Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB spy and author of the book “Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within”, is photographed at his home in London. Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov’s killing follows the slaying over the past decade of several other high-profile critics of President Vladimir Putin and his policies. Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, 44, became sick after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006 and died three weeks later. Litvinenko had fallen out with the Russian government and became a strong critic of the Kremlin, obtaining political asylum after coming to Britain in 2000. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Alistair Fuller, File)
FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 29, 2016 file photo, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 35, Russian opposition activist poses for a photo in Moscow, Russia. Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. A journalist and associate of murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident. He suspects poisoning but no cause has been determined. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Dmitri Beliakov, File)
FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 29, 2016 file photo, Vladimir Kara-Murza, 35, Russian opposition activist poses for a photo in Moscow, Russia. Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. A journalist and associate of murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident. He suspects poisoning but no cause has been determined. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a hospital in Siberia Thursday Aug. 20, 2020 after falling ill from a suspected poisoning. (AP Photo/Dmitri Beliakov, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — When Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny collapsed in an airplane bathroom Thursday, his supporters immediately suspected poisoning.
If true, he wouldn’t be the first prominent, outspoken Russian to be the target of toxic attack. Here are some other people who’ve criticized the Kremlin and then fallen victim to suspected poisonings:
ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
A former agent for the KGB and post-Soviet successor agency FSB, Col. Alexander Litvinenko defected from Russia in 2000 and fled to London, where he fell violently ill six years later after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.
He died after three weeks. A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with President Vladimir Putin’s approval. Russia denied any involvement.
Before his death, Litvinenko told journalists that the FSB was still operating a secret Moscow poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era. He was one of several former Russian intelligence officers to accuse Moscow of being behind the dioxin poisoning of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko during his 2004 election campaign.
At the time of Litvinenko’s poisoning, he had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya three weeks earlier.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
An investigative journalist, Politkovskaya had written critically about abuses by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces fighting separatists in Chechnya – work that earned her repeated death threats.
In 2004, she fell severely ill and lost consciousness after drinking a cup of tea. She said she was deliberately poisoned to prevent her from covering the 2004 seizure of a school in southern Russia by Islamic separatists.
Two years later, Politkovskaya was shot to death outside her Moscow apartment building, a slaying that drew widespread condemnation in the West. Five men were sentenced for carrying out the killing but no one was convicted for ordering it.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA
Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017.
A journalist and associate of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot and killed in 2015 while crossing a bridge near the Kremlin, and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident. He suspects poisoning but no cause has been determined.
He was taken to a hospital with a sudden, similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed he was poisoned. Kara-Murza survived, and police have refused requests to investigate the case, according to his lawyer.
SERGEI AND YULIA SKRIPAL
A Russian spy who became a double agent for Britain, Sergei Skripal fell ill in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. Authorities said Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent Novichok. The two spent weeks in critical condition.
Britain put the blame squarely on Russian intelligence, but Moscow denied any role. Putin called Skripal a “scumbag” of no interest to the Kremlin because he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.
Britain charged two Russian men with the poisoning. They claimed they had visited Salisbury as tourists and denied any involvement in the attack, which came amid revelations about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
PYOTR VERZILOV
Verzilov, a member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot, ended up in an intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning in 2018 and had to be flown to Berlin for treatment.
German doctors treating him said a poisoning was “highly plausible.” He eventually recovered.
Verzilov, his partner and two other Pussy Riot members had served jail time earlier that year for running onto the field during soccer’s World Cup final in Moscow to protest excessive Russian police powers. He has also served time on other charges that he calls politically motivated.