Don't Drink the Tea: Poison Is a Favored Weapon in Russia
MOSCOW — Without the slightest premonition of any issues with his health, Pyotr Verzilov, a Russian opposition activist, suddenly fell violently ill two years ago and slipped into a coma, a common problem for opponents of the Kremlin.
Mr. Verzilov, who is known for staging antigovernment performance art, displayed the same, mysterious symptoms that struck Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, on Thursday as he was on a flight to Moscow.
“I was in exactly the same condition,” Mr. Verzilov said in an interview Thursday with Rain TV, an independent Russian television station, of his monthlong illness in 2018.
Mr. Verzilov was kept alive on a ventilator and later flown to Germany for treatment. Though doctors found no trace of poison, he said that he is convinced it was the cause, and that the Kremlin was responsible.
Poison, though redolent of medieval intrigue, has been a favored tool of Russian intelligence agencies for more than a century. And critics of the Kremlin and independent analysts say the weapon remains in use today. While other countries, including the United States and Israel, have targeted killing programs, they are strictly limited to counterterrorism efforts. Russia, by contrast, has been accused of targeting a wide variety of opponents both at home and abroad.
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