| 33 soldiers suffered for other people's demobilization jokes The Belgorod Garrison Court (Amur Region) rendered a verdict in the scandalous case of mass poisoning in the spring of 2004 of military personnel from the airfield of the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army in Vozzhaevka. Soldier Vitaly Smirnov was in the dock. As it turned out, wanting to take revenge on the old-timers for their grievances, he added a toxic substance - thallium - to the sugar. As a result, 33 servicemen ended up in hospital beds, one of whom died. The court found the former private of military unit 40859 Smirnov completely guilty and sentenced him to seven years in prison, deciding to recover 155 thousand rubles from him in favor of the victims. for compensation for moral and material damage.
Private Smirnov was called up for service in June 2003 from Tatarstan. His relationship with the old-timers did not work out from the first day. The demobilizer immediately dubbed the recruit with the nicknames Brake and Gloomy, mocked him, forcing him to do push-ups at night or hang in the “dried crocodile” position, and took away the money sent by his parents. In May 2004, a commission was supposed to come to the garrison, and the command ordered the soldiers to clean up the abandoned warehouses, where cans of reagents used to develop aerial photographs had been stored since Soviet times. Before this, the command lined up the soldiers on the parade ground and warned that there was a poisonous powder in the warehouse - thallium nitrate. This substance looks like sugar, but when it comes into contact with the skin it turns green. Thallium has pronounced toxicity, disrupts the functioning of various enzyme systems, and interferes with protein synthesis. The toxicity of thallium compounds to humans is higher than that of lead and mercury.
Almost immediately after this, as investigators found out, Smirnov stole two bags of thallium and hid them in his boot. For three weeks the avenger waited for the right moment, and on May 27, standing in his orderly outfit, he waited until his colleagues had left for dinner, went to the storeroom and mixed thallium with sugar. Smirnov hoped that his three offenders - Golikov, Romadanov and Greenwald - would have tea in the evening and receive their dose of poison. But the unexpected happened. In the evening, nine fighters first gathered in the storeroom. Then 24 more people arrived, including two officers and a warrant officer. They felt unwell a day later. The diagnosis - acute preporal poisoning with thallium salts - was made almost immediately. The chemical settled in the liver, kidneys, muscles, and thyroid gland of patients. Private Ivan Mankosh developed toxic multiple organ failure, and on July 10 he died in the district hospital. The rest began to lose hair, their nails peeled off, and they lost up to 30 kg of weight. Six conscripts' legs gave out, so as they recovered they had to be taught to walk again and demobilized on disability. The demobilized soldiers, whom Smirnov considered his offenders, were not harmed at all, since they never came to drink tea on the ill-fated evening.
The first version of the investigation, that the soldiers allegedly smoked marijuana, mixing it with thallium for a greater high, crumbled when the poisoner himself confessed to the prosecutor's office of the Far Eastern Military District. Smirnov was charged with intentionally causing grievous bodily harm resulting in death, and intentionally causing moderate bodily harm. Smirnov honestly said that he was only going to take revenge on the demobilized soldiers who mocked him, and did not wish harm on anyone else. But at the very first court hearing, Smirnov stated that he wrote a sincere confession under pressure and did not poison anyone. As a result, the court decided that the soldier did not deserve leniency at all. Ekaterina KARACHEVA |
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