gaidar_illness.jpg

Doctors who have failed to diagnose former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar’s mysterious illness say they suspect poisoning but are unable to detect a toxic substance, an aide is quoted by Xinhua news agency.

Gaidar, a 50-year-old economist who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin and is a leader of a Russian liberal opposition party, began vomiting and fainted during a conference in Ireland on November 24, and was rushed into intensive care at a hospital.

Spokesman Valery Natarov said doctors treating Gaidar in Moscow concluded his condition “did not correspond to any disease known to medicine and a toxic factor was possible.”

Natarov said Gaidar was taken a clinic in Moscow 60 hours after falling ill, which made it impossible to trace any possible toxic substance which usually remains in the system for up to 48 hours.

Gaidar was discharged on Monday and was feeling “quite well,” but would remain under the doctors’ supervision, Natarov said.

Gaidar fell ill a day after ex-FSB officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko died in London after being poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210.

Irish doctors concluded he was not poisoned by a radioactive substance, but said his health had suffered “radical changes.”

The illness added to growing speculation in Moscow over who might be responsible for Litvinenko’s death. Some critics have tied Litvinenko’s death and Gaidar’s illness to the October killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a Kremlin critic.

Gaidar is a liberal economist whose criticism of the Kremlin was largely limited to economic issues. He is unpopular among many Russians who blame the liberal, Western-backed economic policies he pursued as prime minister for the decline in their living standards following the Soviet collapse.

Popularity: 1% [?]