gadfly Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 I guess the KGB may be up to its old tricks regarding Viktor Yushchenko: He fell ill after having dinner on Sept. 5 with the head of Ukraine's successor to the K.G.B., Gen. Ihor P. Smeshko. General Smeshko has acknowledged meeting Mr. Yushchenko but dismissed the notion that he might have been involved in poisoning him, as many of Mr. Yushchenko's supporters say they suspect. Mr. Yushchenko's wife, a Ukrainian-American, said this week that when she kissed him after he returned from the dinner, she smelled some kind of medicine on this breath, which she now believed to be the poison. Truly scary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfarmer Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 I guess the KGB may be up to its old tricks regarding Viktor Yushchenko: Truly scary. Don't you think it's a rather large assumption to assume this was the work of the KGB? It could have just as easily been the rival candidate himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Release Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 Don't you think it's a rather large assumption to assume this was the work of the KGB? It could have just as easily been the rival candidate himself. From CNN: "In September, the 50-year-old presidential candidate fell ill a day after attending a reception and dinner with Ukrainian security services leaders." I don't know much about politics and security forces in the Ukraine or if they have any relations with KGB (but I think they do). But it does seem likely that they poisoned him on behalf of his opposition. It's all pretty serious over there and I'm thankful I'm an American for times like these (regardless if Bush is in office). ~Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfarmer Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 From CNN: I don't know much about politics and security forces in the Ukraine or if they have any relations with KGB (but I think they do). But it does seem likely that they poisoned him on behalf of his opposition. It's all pretty serious over there and I'm thankful I'm an American for times like these (regardless if Bush is in office). ~Michael Where's James Bond when you need him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidV Posted December 12, 2004 Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 This story more clearly implicates the KGB. "I actually talked to [Yushchenko] in late July when getting messages from both Ukrainian and Russian ex-secret service agents saying there was a plot and poisoning is number one," he said. Rybachuk said the agents told Yushchenko the goal would not be to kill him but to make him an "invalid" in order to knock him out of the campaign. "We couldn't believe they would dare, but they did," said Rybachuk. (My knowledge of Russian was actually useful here: "invalid" is the Russian word for "disabled person.") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gadfly Posted December 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 Don't you think it's a rather large assumption to assume this was the work of the KGB? It could have just as easily been the rival candidate himself. You are right, I should have said "the agency which succeeded the KGB in Ukraine". My point was more that Eastern Bloc security services have poisoned people before, and this service - or somebody - seems to be following the tradition. The reports so far are not conclusive, but so far seem to suggest that he was poisoned during dinner at the general's house: the fact that he fell ill after dinner, the odor on his breath, the fact that the medical exam indicated his poisoning was consistent with ingestion of the poison. Whether his host had something to do with it, or whether he was an unwitting accomplice, hopefully we'll find out for sure soon. The real question is: did the butler work for the opposition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gadfly Posted December 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 Where's James Bond when you need him? Very funny. Actually, lately James Bond has been somewhat of a slacker. I hear he prefers doing donuts in ice castles in $300,000 Aston Martins rather than fighting crime, as in his early novels - er - missions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tryptonique Posted December 13, 2004 Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 You guys are aware that Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB officer himself, right? I'm not suggesting that Vlady poisoned Yushchenko himself, but seeing how strongly he has come out to support the Pro-Moscow/ Pro-Russia Ukrainian candidate makes me wonder if he wouldn't have handed over the task to someone else. Especially after Putin does crappy things like arrest oil tycoons, start development on a missle defense system that will supposedly "outclass" anything the west has to offer, interfering in elections in a former satelite state, and other such Soviet style nonsense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommyedison Posted January 12, 2005 Report Share Posted January 12, 2005 Don't you find it strange that whoever poisoned Yushenko used a non-lethal dose of Dioxin rather than a fatal dose of cyanide or something to really disable him? I do. And how come they could only diagnose him MONTHS later when they failed to diagnose him for poisoning before? Something seems very fishy here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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