The poison got into Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko’s system possibly from food, according to the doctors who examined him. He took ill immediately after a dinner with Ukrainian officials who had ties with Russian officials. At the time, the 2004 elections were around the corner and Yushchenko was campaigning against a politician favoured by Moscow. The high level of the poison, dioxin, in his system impacted his intestine and disfigured his face. Yushchenko was not the only one to be poisoned. Russian investigative journalist and Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya was flying from Moscow to cover the siege in Beslan the same year when she took ill. It came to be known later that she had felt sick after drinking tea on the plane.

Stomach that

Politkovskaya was shot two years later but in 2008, there was an attempt to intimidate her lawyer Karinna Moskalenko with poison. Not via a cuppa though. At the time, the murder trial of Politkovskaya had just started; a large number of mercury pellets were found hidden beneath Moskalenko’s car seat causing her headaches, dizziness and nausea. In 2004, Russian businessman Roman Tsepov and one time Putin confidant visited colleagues at a local FSB (Federal Security Service) office, had a cup of tea, developed violent symptoms and died a fortnight later. Politkovskaya had been a friend of Russian security-agent-turned-Kremlin-critic Alexander Litvinenko who died in London in 2006.

A strong cuppa

From what Litvinenko told the detective of Scotland Yard, it appears the poison had been in the tea; he had figured it out. Hitmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun had set up a first meeting with Litvinenko in a Grosvenor Street boardroom and laced his cup with polonium but Litvinenko didn’t touch it. The next meeting was in a bar. Since Litvinenko didn’t drink alcohol, there was a pot of green tea, just in case. He asked for a clean cup, poured what turned out to be a cold cup, took a sip and that did it. In 2015, Russian activist Vladimir Kara Murza Jr was suddenly taken ill after a lunch at a restaurant. There was a repeat of the episode in 2017. In 2018, activist with the Russian activist group Pussy Riot, Pyotr Verzilov, was taken ill and hospitalised after a court hearing. Since the 30-something had no health complaints till then, it was suspected to be a case of poisoning. That same year, Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who acted as a double agent for the UK, and his daughter Yulia were targeted with nerve agent Novichok. What finally got them was poison in a bottle of perfume, but poison traces were found in the restaurant where the two had eaten. In August 2020, Navalny was taken ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He had only consumed tea at an airport cafe.