Ministry of External Forces

Yegor Gaidar's strange illness provoked a wave of allegations of a conspiracy against the Kremlin

Yesterday it became known that last Friday the director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, Yegor Gaidar, was hospitalized with symptoms of severe poisoning. The founding father of Russian reforms became ill in Dublin, at the forum “Ireland and Russia: history, the letter of the law and the changing world system,” where he was supposed to present his book “The Death of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia.” This happened the day after the famous dissident and former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko died from poisoning with a cocktail of radioactive substances. Yegor Gaidar was urgently hospitalized at the James Connolly Hospital in Blandchardstown and placed in intensive care. Last night, the press service of the Irish Foreign Ministry stated that this department is not inclined to see suspicious circumstances in Mr. Gaidar’s illness.

Nevertheless, the Chairman of RAO UES of Russia, Anatoly Chubais, in a conversation with journalists in St. Petersburg, suggested that his longtime friend and comrade in the Union of Right Forces, Yegor Gaidar, could have been poisoned. However, at the same time, Mr. Chubais ruled out any possibility of involvement of the Russian special services in this case. “In this case, Moscow would be a much simpler and more convenient place than Dublin,” he noted. At the same time, Mr. Chubais, who is usually extremely cautious in political statements, expressed the opinion that Gaidar’s poisoning was beneficial to the Kremlin’s opponents (he did not specify whether it was internal or external). These same forces, as the head of RAO UES suggests, are behind the murders of Alexander Litvinenko and Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya: “On November 24, Yegor Gaidar was in the balance between life and death. Could this just be some kind of natural disease? Judging by what the most professional doctors who know the situation first-hand say, no.” “The fact that the deadly Politkovskaya-Litvinenko-Gaidar construction, which was not miraculously completed, would be extremely attractive to supporters of unconstitutional forceful options for changing power in Russia is indisputable for me,” Mr. Chubais believes.

The words of the chairman of RAO UES bring to mind the accusations of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office against the disgraced oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who permanently resides in London. On the other hand, with the same reasons they can be addressed to internal Russian groups trying to destabilize the situation in the country on the eve of the presidential elections.

Yesterday, in a conversation with reporters, the daughter of politician Maria Gaidar, who heads the opposition youth movement “Democratic Alternative,” did not rule out the possibility of poisoning. However, she insisted that until doctors made an accurate diagnosis, no conclusions could be drawn about the nature of her father’s illness. “I can’t deny the version of poisoning, but I prefer to think about another diagnosis. The fact is that doctors still cannot determine what exactly happened to him. This is absolutely not a heart attack or stroke. The critical condition was caused by something else, what exactly is still unclear,” said Maria Gaidar.

Yegor Gaidar's press secretary Valery Natarov yesterday denied the version of "radioactive" poisoning of his boss. He called on the public not to create “another pseudo-sensation with radioactive isotopes” from the story of Gaidar’s deteriorating health condition. “The possibility of poisoning cannot be ruled out. The version of poisoning using radioactive isotopes is excluded,” Gaidar’s press secretary emphasized. Mr. Natarov said Gaidar’s condition was “stable and noticeably improving.” Now he is undergoing treatment in one of the Moscow clinics. It is not yet known when he will be discharged.

“It’s obvious that Gaidar was poisoned,” Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), said yesterday on the Ekho Moskvy radio station. “The fact that doctors can't discover what poisoned him means this is a well-thought-out operation.” The answer to the question of who did this will explain that it is a bad climate in the Russian economy or the reluctance of some forces so that the climate is perceived as clearly improving.” Mr. Shokhin also suggested that “behind the death of Litvinenko and the assassination attempt on Gaidar” are the “special services of other states,” who thus want to “discredit the Russian special services.”

Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA