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Russia's Gaidar Ill In Hospital With "Mystery" Ailment
By Guy Faulconbridge
Wed Nov 29, 6:04 AM ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Yegor Gaidar, architect of Russia's market reforms, was being treated in a Moscow hospital on Wednesday after coming close to death with a mystery ailment during a visit to Ireland, friends and family said.



Gaidar, 50, who unleashed economic shock therapy before the dust had settled on the ruins of the Soviet Union, fell unconscious with unexplained symptoms on November 24 during a visit to Dublin to present his new book -- Death of the Empire.

"He lost consciousness for three hours and was taken to intensive care for a long time where doctors were fearful for his life," Gaidar's daughter Maria, an opposition activist, told Reuters.

"He is in Moscow and doctors are trying to come up with a diagnosis but they can't find one. His condition is satisfactory and he is speaking but he looks very bad -- he looks pale and thin."

Maria Gaidar said that doctors were trying to diagnose "rather strange symptoms" including a nose bleed and loss of consciousness, but that she did not want to comment on a report in London's Financial Times that he may have been poisoned.

Gaidar, who now heads the Institute for the Economy in Transition, fell ill a day after former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital from radiation poisoning.

Litvinenko, a critic of the Kremlin, left a letter blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for his death.

The Kremlin of course denies any involvement

RESTRAINED CRITIC

A tubby economist who became reform commissar and acting prime minister for former president Boris Yeltsin, Gaidar provoked awe and antipathy for freeing prices in 1992 and for launching the first wave of privatizations after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Anatoly Chubais, a very close former colleague who went on to become Yeltsin's chief-of-staff, told reporters that doctors thought Gaidar's illness may not be natural.

"Yegor Gaidar on 24 November was in the balance between life and death. Could this be simply some sort of natural illness? According to what the most professional doctors, who have first- hand knowledge of the situation, say: No," Chubais said.

Quietly spoken and more at home with his economics books than in Russia's turbulent politics, Gaidar has made restrained criticism of Putin's economic policies.

Chubais, target of an assassination attempt in 2005, made a link between Gaidar's illness and the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and Litvinenko's death.

"For me there is no doubt that the deathly chain Politkovskaya-Litvinenko-Gaidar, which miraculously was not finished, would have been extremely attractive for the supporters of an unconstitutional, forceful change of power in Russia," said Chubais.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/russia_gaidar_illness_dc

[canuckistan]

Poison is the weapon of choice in Putin's regime. Very medieval, ruthless...and effective.
A few months ago I was watching a documentary about the poisoning of Ukraine's Yushenko right before the Ukraine election. Anna Poliskovskaya was interviewed--she'd already been poisoned once and survived. She very calmly stated that she knew she would eventually be murdered. I was horrified to hear they'd succeeded a couple of months ago. Now a Russian dissident with polonium. Countless others.

Putin and his regime are nothing more than a bunch of thugs and I hope they are exposed once and for all and they rot in hell forever.

[soviet_man]

You have to appreciate the position of the Kremlin.

Putin and the leadership are trying to hold together the largest country in the world: with the prospect of breakaway republics, a war in Chechnya, a soaring death rate, an anti-Russian regime in Kyiv, religious fundamentalism and massive corruption at all levels - doesn't make anything in Russian politics simple.

Therefore, it is not surprising (to me anyway) that some dissenters of the state have had their former status revoked, in the interest of state security.

Thus waiting for Putin to be "exposed once and for all" grossly misjudges the Russian mindset and the post-communist Russian narrative.

Most Russian men over the age of 35 served in the Red Army. So you cannot judge blindly the intrinsic mentality that still exists with regard to security issues and natural suspicion of agents of change.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[ddeubel]

[soviet_man]

Oh please. Destroying the careers of a few neocon gangsters is a lot different to a state that blows up 48,000 Iraqi civilians for no reason, don't you think?

Few Russians care about the death of state enemies. Most are not concerned with such small issues, as incidents such as that occur on a daily basis.

[thepeel]

This is going to be an interesting thread.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[soviet_man]

[thepeel]

Ohhhhhh, man, the Straw-man, when he reads that, is going to be wayy pist by that comment.

[igotthisguitar]