Talk:Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to the Balkans or Eastern Europe, which has been designated as a contentious topic.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 19, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Crime and Criminal Biography Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Death Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics Low‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Russia: History / Politics and law Mid‑importance

	Russia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Russia, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of Russia on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.RussiaWikipedia:WikiProject RussiaTemplate:WikiProject RussiaRussia
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the history of Russia task force.
	This article is supported by the politics and law of Russia task force.

United Kingdom Low‑importance

	United Kingdom portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Archive 1

Archive 2

Before page split from Alexander Litvinenko:

This page has archives. Sections older than 365 days may be automatically archived by when more than 5 sections are present.

Gaidar Poisoning

This article assumes, incorrectly, that Yegor Gaidar was poisoned in the course of his visit to Ireland. There is absolutely no evidence of poisoning in this case. Yegor Gaidar was taken ill at Maynooth College near Dublin on the day of Litvinenko's death. He began to bleed from the nose and appeared to be unconscious for a short time. A member of the Russian group attending the Maynooth conference noted that Gaidar had begun to feel ill during a stop-over at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest on his way to Ireland. Gaidar suffers from hypertension and diabetes and doctors who examined him at the scene said his condition was consistent with these ailments. Gaidar was taken to the James Connolly Memorial Hospital at Blanchardstown near Dublin where his condition was regarded not to be life-threatening.

An Garda Siochana, the Irish national police force, conducted an investigation into the event. No traces of polonium or any other poisonous or toxic substance were found at any place in which Gaidar was present. The investigation into the Maynooth event was not and is not part of an "ongoing investigation in the UK and in Ireland" since the event had absolutely no connection with the UK and the investigation in the Republic of Ireland has been completed. Yegor Timurevich Gaidar was released from hospital the following morning and spent the day at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Dublin where, according to Embassy sources, he was well enough to consume a considerable amount of vodka.

On his return to Russia Gaidar checked himself into a clinic in which the doctors stated that it would be contrary to their medical ethics to declare him a poisoning victim. Gaidar believed he was poisoned but the reason he gave for this was not entirely logical. In short he has stated that since the Russian doctors could not find a reason for his illness it must, therefore, have been due to poisoning. - Seamusfmartin (talk) 11:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Murder is not likely

The entire premise of this article seems unlikely. Polonium is exceptionally rare and very expense to produce. Why would a nation in the midst of economic collapse use 4-5 million dollars worth of a rare element to murder someone? A bullet or knife is cheaper and very reliable.

A more likely explanation is they were smuggling the polonium out to one of the several organizations that hold missing Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Those weapons use polonium triggers. The polonium in these would have decayed decades ago and therefore be useless. This sounds like a botched mule operation. - HP Controls - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hpcontrols (talk • contribs) 15:21, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Possibly related events" section: Yasser Arafat polonium murder link claim

These discuss the Yasser Arafat polonium murder link claim:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/15/yasser-arafat-poisoned-polonium-litvinenko_n_4099837.html http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/yasser-arafat-poisoned-polonium-also-2372116

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Al-Jazeera-Others-Spread-by-William-Dunkerley-120811-171.html

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp%253Fid%253D344808 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Switchcraft (talk • contribs) 13:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Beluga

Why is there not a single word about operation Beluga? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.82.33.171 (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Chronological issues in lead section ?

I am referring the the lines " In 1998, Litvinenko and several other Russian intelligence officers said they were ordered to kill Boris Berezovsky, a Russian businessman. After that, the Russian government began to persecute Litvinenko. He fled to the UK, where he criticised the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government" in the lead section. "

Is it not that he first fled to the UK, and then the russian government started criticising him ? Alexandria Bucephalous (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]