[Flipside]

'Rybachuk said the agents told Yushchenko the goal would not be to kill him but to make him an "invalid" in order to knock him out of the campaign.'

Not meaning to be funny, but since when has the KGB been interested in making 'invalids' out of possible threats?

[Ford Prefect]

Since when does the KGB exist anymore?

[Gank]

Its called the FSB now, obviously the Ukranians havent been informed of the name change, else they feel KGB sounds worse.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by redmenace
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=322922
If the KGB wanted to kill him I think they would have been a little more successful. What do you think?

It's probably more politically expedient to blame the KGB / Russians than it is to blame the Ukranian secret service - apparently he was having dinner with the chief of the Ukranian secret service the day before he was taken ill..... doesn't take a genius to draw an insinuation from that.

Of course, it'd probably more valuable to disfigure and disable him than outright kill him; a bitter, ugly (lets be honest here, he does look a mess and image counts in politics...) politician is a far less dangerous enemy than a martyred one.

[Flipside]

Possibly so, but why use something that would be so obvious to everyone? It practically screams the fact that he has been poisoned, and therefore fingers get pointed.

If you wanted to incapacitate someone like that, it seems odd to be doing it in such a deliberate and obvious way.

[Gank]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041212/ap_on_re_eu/romania_election_5
Another coup in the making.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Flipside
Possibly so, but why use something that would be so obvious to everyone? It practically screams the fact that he has been poisoned, and therefore fingers get pointed.

If you wanted to incapacitate someone like that, it seems odd to be doing it in such a deliberate and obvious way.

Well, there's always the possibility it was a ****-up....

Of course, they only got the results now; after the elections.  They probably never anticipated a 'velvet revolution'.  Or maybe they thought he'd pull out due to the illness.

[Bobboau]

Originally posted by aldo_14

Of course, it'd probably more valuable to disfigure and disable him than outright kill him; a bitter, ugly (lets be honest here, he does look a mess and image counts in politics...) politician is a far less dangerous enemy than a martyred one.

yeah it's good to have a reminder that somone tryed to kill him every time he is seen.

[Gank]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Of course, they only got the results now; after the elections.  They probably never anticipated a 'velvet revolution'.  Or maybe they thought he'd pull out due to the illness.

The tests only took 24 hours, why wait till now right before the re-election before you run them.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Gank

The tests only took 24 hours, why wait till now right before the re-election before you run them.

IIRC they didn't announce the results until they had contacted other experts in the field (and sent them off blood, etc, samples), and this was the first time they took a biopsy.

Of course, why wait until now to release this, as opposed to during the election or the post-election period?

[.::Tin Can::.]

At least he isnt stuck that way for the rest of his life, and only 2 years.

[Flipside]

Yes, but the odds of him dying of cancer have gone through the roof, iirc Dioxin is the Carcinogenic component of Agent Orange. So he has, most likely, got a short and painful life ahead of him

[aldo_14]

Not to mention he's now a case study for large-quantity dioxin poisoning; IIRC no-one has ever had that large a single dose before, so they don't know exactly what will happen.  

Reportedly he has a catheter inserted into the back of his spine for injecting painkillers, and his internal organs are covered in tumours.

[karajorma]

IIRC Dioxin is one of the most carcinogenic compounds known to man.