US Report: Putin Likely Ordered Yushchenko’s Poisoning
A secret US report has been released, showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have ordered the poisoning of Ukraine‘s former president Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko was a strong supporter of Ukraine joining Western countries. In 2004, he suffered from a severe case of food poisoning that left him with disfiguring skin problems. Many people believed at the time that Russian agents had given him poison to try and stop him from becoming president.
The US report says that Putin personally ordered the assassinations of several other important figures, including a Chechen leader who was killed in Qatar, and a former Russian spy named Alexander Litvinenko who died after being poisoned with radioactive material in London.
The report also talks about the death of a Russian businessman who died in Britain before he could give evidence to police about alleged money laundering. Another person mentioned in the report is a Ukrainian military commander who was killed in 2015.
Experts say that Russia still has the ability to track down people it doesn’t like and kill them using poison or other means. They warn that this will likely keep happening.
The US report says that these types of operations are part of Putin’s efforts to stop Ukraine from joining Western countries.