Talk:Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

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)

@Seamusfmartin I know nothing of that case, but the above opinion is highly suspect as one of great many posts worldwide by Putin's puppets at the Russian Internet Research Agency and other related arms of Putin's regime.

With Putin having been proven beyond all doubt as the maniacal murderer of many hundreds of thousands of people so far, in operations ranging from the small to the immense, and killing over 1000 young men every day in his genocidal war on Ukraine, this kind of propaganda denying his responsibility for a murder with polonium from Russia is offensive. If it involves polonium that means Putin orderred it to be done. 2604:3D09:8878:4500:D5F0:FAA:CA06:B2EC (talk) 01:13, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I was present when Gaidar became ill in Maynooth. I therefore know quite a lot about it and agree with your statement that you know nothing. I knew Gaidar. I was aware of his severe diabetes and I saw him become ill at the conference at which I was one of the speakers. After he was taken to hospital I spoke to those who had accompanied him from Moscow. I was told that the same symptoms had occurred at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest on his way to Ireland. If he was poisoned it certainly was not in this country. Seamusfmartin (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

"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)

@Switchcraft Do you really expect that such sloppy journalism by such dubious sources could be used in a Wikipedia article?

It is very obvious that Putin has paid his puppets to flood the pages that discuss his megamaniacal and murderous tendencies with denials, but nobody is fooled by any of the propaganda posted by his puppets. 2604:3D09:8878:4500:D5F0:FAA:CA06:B2EC (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Typo in the Pubmed abstract cited in the Matthew Puncher section

Current version:

Suicide by multiple stab wounds is extremely rare— one study counts 8 cases of multiple-site wounds for 513,182 suicides.

The total number of suicides (513,182) is taken from the Pubmed version of the abstract in the second reference (click on 'PMID 11953487'), but the numbers in that version of the abstract don't make sense — half a million suicides in South Australia in 40 years?! Plus 'men (n = 1835)' and 'women (n = 1416)' add up to just 3251 cases and '[f]ifty-one cases [...] representing 1.6% of total suicides (513182)'?!?

When you look at the original abstract (click on '10.1097/00000433-200203000-00003'), it becomes clear that Pubmed left out several slashes — '1.6% of total suicides (51/3182)', '51.4% of men (n = 18/35)' and '87.5% of women (n = 14/16)'. This means that the total number of cases we want is just 3182, not 513,182. ~2025-35349-00 (talk) 14:25, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Article review

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the following:

• The biggest issue I have with the article is how unfocused and off-topic it is. The information in "Timeline" and "Other people related to the case" sections should be moved to other parts of the article and expanded so the article reads more like a narrative and less like a list. The "Comparisions to other deaths" should connect to this event more effectively. "References in pop culture" should be written as prose instead of a bulleted list.
• There are unreferenced statements in the article.

Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 00:01, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisted. C679 09:18, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

The article's prose seems unfocused and off-topic. The information in "Timeline" and "Other people related to the case" sections should be moved to other parts of the article and expanded so the article reads more like a narrative and less like a list. The "Comparisions to other deaths" section should connect to this event more effectively. "References in pop culture" should be written as prose instead of a bulleted list. There are also unreferenced statements in the article. Z1720 (talk) 04:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

This is the state the page was in when it was listed as a GA. I think sections like "Possibly related events" and "Comparisons to other deaths" are weak and need to be rewritten, but it is salvageable. Are there any other ways to phrase "References in pop culture"? It feels like a crass way to talk about a man who was murdered. Maybe "Cultural depictions", "Cultural references" or something like that? aesurias (ping me in your reply, or I won't see it) (talk) 04:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

• @Aesurias: "Cultural depictions" is my preference, but cultural references is also fine with me. Z1720 (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

• Delist. No significant edits to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.