Another poisoning on Putin's watch

People who are perceived to be enemy's of Russian President Putin have being dying and getting ill a lot lately. They are almost up there with the succession poisonings in the Roman Empire in its latter days. Russia itself has had its own problems with poisoning public officials historically. One King would eat nothing but hard boiled eggs that he peeled himself. Perhaps dissidents and reporters should follow that advice.

The NY Times reports that Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former Russian K.G.B. officer, was killed by polonium 210 evidently used on some sushi he ate at a London restaurant.

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The cause of his death was so unusual, so baffling and so chilling that a senior British official called it “unprecedented.” The government called a high-level meeting restricted to the most senior ministers — codenamed Cobra — and the Russian ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office. Rebutting the accusations of foul play, Russian officials hinted at a devious conspiracy to discredit President Putin.

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But the British police said they were treating the case as an “unexplained death” — displaying some caution about calling it a murder inquiry.

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It is not the first time that modern-day Russia has been suspected in a prominent poisoning in a foreign land. Doctors said that the Ukrainian president, Viktor A. Yushchenko — who campaigned in 2004 to move Ukraine away from Russian influence and forge closer ties with the European Union — was poisoned with dioxin when he was running for office, leaving his face badly disfigured. Russia, as well as an array of Mr. Yushchenko’s political adversaries, was suspected in the poisoning, but the matter was never resolved.

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It is interesting that many of Putin's enemy's are making him look bad by ingesting poison. That seems like rather extreme links to discredit Putin. I think he needs to come up with better spin to cover these “unexplained deaths.”

Captain's Quarters says the method used in the killing indicts the Russians.

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The use of polonium strongly indicts the Russian government in this murder. One does not find polonium just laying around somewhere; it's rather rare, and difficult to produce in any quantity. However, small quantities are all that are needed for poisoning someone, as the maximum safe ingested dose is 0.03 microcurie. It's 25 billion times more poisonous than hydrocyanic acid. Anyone who attempted to deploy this as an assassin's weapon has to have a lot of expertise in handling polonium -- which again strongly indicates a government assassin at work. It practically convicts Putin by its use.

It certainly worked this time.