
We Now Know More About the Apparent Poisoning of the Pussy Riot Member - jbegley
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/we-now-know-more-about-the-apparent-poisoning-of-the-pussy-riot-member-pyotr-verzilov/
======
carbocation
Probably worthwhile raising people's awareness of toxidromes, and how
physicians try to recognize and think through these syndromes. There is a
fantastic review article out this past year that helps to concisely put things
together to improve your ability to distinguish nerve agents, mustard agents,
etc. Quick recognition of the likely class of agent based on symptoms is
important, because the treatments (and the risks to responders) differ.

Original at
[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1705224](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1705224)

Full repost hosted presumably by one of the authors at
[http://www.dickyricky.com/Medicine/Papers/2018_04_26%20NEJM%...](http://www.dickyricky.com/Medicine/Papers/2018_04_26%20NEJM%20Toxidrome%20Recognition%20in%20Chemical-
Weapons%20Attacks.pdf)

------
krn
Poison in the System[1] is the first part of Buzzfeed's investigative
journalism series on many unexpected deaths related to Russia since 2003. The
entire series is worth a book.

[1] [https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/poison-in-the-
system](https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/poison-in-the-system)

~~~
everdev
I've always wondered: why poison? It doesn't always seem to kill the victim
and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors.

~~~
freeflight
The US version of it is a Hellfire missile from a drone remote-controlled from
2 continents away.

Way more lethal, way more collateral, quite obvious to identify as the act of
a state actor, still common practice barely anybody takes issue with.

~~~
erentz
Your comparison is completely unalike. Yes the US drone war program is bad.
Yes the endless war on terror is bad. But these are not the same as a tyrant
poisoning anyone who becomes inconvenient to him.

The closest comparison I think you could validly make would be something like
the harsh treatment of Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner (or Drake, or
Snowden, etc). None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile.

(Edit: that’s not to excuse the treatment of those people either.)

~~~
freeflight
No, it's exactly the same. Both are extrajudicial and state-sponsored killings
aka assassinations.

Just because many people have blind trust in the US government and the
validity of its kill list aka "disposition matrix" [0] doesn't change the
basic injustice of the act, which is just as unjust as poisoning some "enemy
of the state".

The international laws and human rights broken in both cases are exactly the
same, the only difference is the methodology of the final "execution".

> None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile.

It's extremely naive to assume we know every drone victim ever, it's not like
the US drone program is a shining beacon of transparency.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix)

~~~
erentz
Putin targets Russian citizens that are his personal enemies because they
speak up, protest, or otherwise embarrass him. He does it using poison in a
manner to make sure everyone knows who did it and what the consequences are if
you cross him.

The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or
embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president.

(Stating the obvious, but that’s not a defense of the drone program. You’ve
outlined its problems. But it’s just clearly not the same thing.)

~~~
freeflight
> The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or
> embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president.

How do you know that? Does the US publish its list? No, it doesn't, so you are
making that statement on literally nothing but good faith.

While at the same time you use bad faith to frame the Russian version as
something where Putin personally orders people killed for slighting him or
some other mundane reason.

The reality is both are killing "enemies of the state", justified and
regulated by their own, internal, rulesets and governmental institutions. They
and others have been doing so openly, and covertly for decades. Heck, this
kind of stuff even has been glorified as a pop-culture export from the UK as
"the agent with a license to kill".

In that context, there's literally no difference if it's an Obama, Trump,
Putin or their UK equivalent giving the final "okay" or if the target is a
US/UK/Russian national who's a terrorist/pedophile/traitor/whatever.

It's about the lack of accountability, the lack of due process, the lack of
recourse. All these issues exist regardless of the US, Russia or anybody else
doing something like this.

In that context, the US drone war is pretty much the overt manifestation of a
practice that used to be kept covertly due to its inherent controversy. But in
the zeals of a war on terror, where even torture became openly condonable, too
many people have lost their moral compass.

~~~
stickfigure
_> The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or
embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president._

 _How do you know that?_

Well, there's simple occam's razor - if drone strikes were doing this, we'd
probably have heard about it. On the other hand we have a rising body count of
journalists, artists, and ex-spies with real names and histories.

No matter how you feel about drone strikes, you can't compare these things.

------
forapurpose
When I see stories like this, I think of this editorial written by Lasantha
Wickrematunge, a leading Sri Lankan journalist, to be printed in the event of
his being killed:

 _And Then They Came For Me_

 _No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for
their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course
of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under
attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed,
sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and
killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now
especially the last. ..._

It's a powerful essay that challenges not only authorities but also simplistic
hero/villain narratives about them, about journalists, and about their
readers. Highly recommended:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180120100014/http://www.thesun...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180120100014/http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm)

 _If you remember nothing else, remember this: The [Sunday] Leader is there
for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or
disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to
which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let
there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not
made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you
deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried._

------
colordrops
Any indication of what type of poison was used? The symptoms sound horrific.
Blindness, and continued hallucinations after days. Must be very traumatic.

~~~
nbabitskiy
Media reported that he "may have been poisoned with strychnine", but there's
no official diagnose yet.

EDIT: I'm badly mistaken. It was reported about Russian-British couple in
Salisbury. I've got confused, since there are three different poisonings being
discussed in the media daily. Normal day in Russia(

------
zemleamir
Things that are interesting about this to me:

1\. In Russia, nobody really knows or cares about pussy riot. The western
fascination with them is a kind of exoticism. Nadya Tolokonnikova can fill a
1000-5000 seat lecture hall in a major american city, but in Moscow it'd be a
surprise if 100 people showed up. This isn't out of fear or anything like
that; think what kind of attendance a young, white, American punk woman doing
art pranks in America would draw on the American speaking circuit. It's the
same in Russia, to most people they're just not that interesting.

2\. In Russia, nobody knows or cares about zona.media. This article says
"...Media Zone quickly established itself as one of the country’s most
reliable sources of information," but it's basically the modern Russian
equivalent of IndyMedia: a protest calendar that only a very small contingent
of activists pay attention to with the normal levels of radical infighting and
articles written for the echo chamber. Nobody "on the street" has even heard
of it.

3\. Putin has a slight growing problem with young people who didn't experience
the "before" and "after" of his taking power in the 90s, but for the most part
nobody cares about these stories. If you ask people "on the street" whether
they think Putin was responsible for the apartment building bombings
referenced here, most will straight up say "even if he was, I don't care, he's
still amazing." There was even a podcast (radiolab?) that actually did these
interviews.

However, I am very prepared to believe that the Russian state poisoned Pyotr.
What I never understand about these recent actions, though, is why? Why go out
of your way to poison a no-name activist that operates in fringe circles for
researching a story that nobody would care about, even if Putin were to
confess live on TV channel 1?

~~~
rdtsc
> Why go out of your way to poison a no-name activist that operates in fringe
> circles for researching a story that nobody would care about, even if Putin
> were to confess live on TV channel 1?

A message to the West perhaps?

> The western fascination with them is a kind of exoticism.

But the West is important to them. They know the fascination and they know the
West is watching so they just showed everyone they can be ruthless.

It could play on the angle that Westerners should be careful about supporting
too much someone like that as their popularity could end up killing them. For
example, say Harvard wanted to invite Verzilov to give a talk. Now they might
think twice - it would be nice to have him, but would they be painting a
target on his back because of it? So it has kind of a secondary chilling
effect.

Another reason:

> Verzilov had been working on an investigative story about the deaths of the
> three Russian journalists, Alexander Rastorguev, Orkhan Dzhemal, and Kirill
> Radchenko.

It wasn't that he was particularly dangerous because of his political stance
but because he started to dig into other journalists' suspicious deaths. So he
might have been a no-name but got close enough to uncover things.

One more reason:

Eliminate the troublemakers early. Don't wait till they become popular. Have
someone monitor the media and detect who is becoming "dangerous" and eliminate
them before they have a huge following.

~~~
krn
> Another reason:

> Verzilov had been working on an investigative story about the deaths of the
> three Russian journalists, Alexander Rastorguev, Orkhan Dzhemal, and Kirill
> Radchenko.

This is the most likely reason, because:

> Russian journalists killed in Central African Republic were researching
> military firm with Kremlin links, their editors say

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/01/russian-
journa...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/01/russian-journalists-
killed-central-african-republic-investigating-military-firm-kremlin-links)

~~~
tim333
The Military firm is Wagner group -

>Wagner’s forces remain outside the Russian armed forces, following the whims
of their master, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/ru...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/russian-
mercenaries-wagner-africa/568435/)

And re Prigozhin:

>In 1981 he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment under articles of
robbery, fraud, and involving teenagers in prostitution.

>His ties to Putin go back to at least 2001: He’s worked on everything from
election interference to setting up pro-Putin newspapers to sending Russian
mercenaries to Syria to fight on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

>... personally approved a Russian mercenary attack on US forces stationed in
eastern Syria in early February
[https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/26/17044930/yevgheny-
prigoz...](https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/26/17044930/yevgheny-prigozhin-
putin-mueller-troll-farm)

Probably not the kind of guy who'd worry too much about having an
investigative journalist hit.

------
horsecaptin
I always like to ask, "who wins?". News gets out that Russia is poisoning
people critical of it. Who wins? Do they achieve their goals of silencing
criticism? Obviously people think negatively of them and think twice before
visiting the country. So, who wins?

~~~
BurnGpuBurn
Good question. In my eyes Russia indeed has really no motive to do this. On
the other hand, given the constant demonization of Russia over the last years,
this perfectly fits that narrative.

But if the goal was this demonization of Russia, then yeah, that's a lot of
motive right there.

------
blunte
At this point, are we really surprised at the way some people who perceive
themselves as above the law (apply this to any political or commercial leaders
you see fit) will behave?

We have passed a turning point at which previously reprehensible behaviors
have become tolerated. And as an English speaker living in the Netherlands has
come to learn, some of us have an ingrained inclination to avoid directly
calling out what to most people would be an obvious problem (to avoid
potentially offending).

Putin's Russia kills people. It imprisons people. It poisons people. It
cheats, it steals (from masses of poor people). It lies in the face of the
world (bare chested). For some reason we now tolerate this without calling it
for what it is.

And now we have an American government that has for so long not only avoided
calling it out but instead has celebrated non-virtues while avoiding
contagious fatal flaws that we forget how wrong for civilization the behavior
is. Not only that, but we've begun to celebrate the virtues of dictators - not
benevolent ones (if they exist), but previously-OBVIOUS horrible self-serving
ones.

So, trying to shut the rant down, it's all quite f-d up. We should not only
not be surprised, we should be up in arms. Ironically, the people who should
be up in arms are the ones who wisely have realized that arming the civilians
is a net-negative. But at least in the US, the right to bear arms is exactly
to undo situations like the one we are clearly headed toward.

~~~
cloakandswagger
For a while I shared the mentality that Russia was unequivocally bad and the
anti-thesis of all Western values of freedom. It was like common knowledge to
me.

But with every breathless proclamation like yours of Russia as a cartoon
villain I started to have doubts. It seemed like everything was suddenly
Russia's fault--they were the absolute root of all evil in the world. Anyone
who disagreed was obviously a Russian bot.

The last straw for me was when Theresa May declared, without any doubt, that
the Russian state had attempted to assassinate two British citizens using
nerve agents (10 days after the fact, before the conclusion of any
investigation and without any concrete evidence to implicate Russia).

This Russia-phobia is dangerous. We have made a bogeyman and a scapegoat out
of a desperate, nuclear-equipped nation that less than 30 years ago had its
federation, economy and national identity shattered. I'm afraid that this
delusion won't stop until a full on conflict breaks out which should be a much
scarier prospect than yet-another-evil-dictatorship.

~~~
mc32
I think you both have valid points. Russia is not always a good global
citizen. It’s had a history of ignoring protocol if it got in their way. They
have had cheerleaders when they were Soviet, they have a few chearleaders now
(ME, for example).

But we, in the West, and countries aligned with the West, fail to understand
their motives. Like China, they have internal motives that while they look
like they are strategizing against the West in particular, at times it’s just
due to internal issues.

Russia didn’t anex Crimea to poke the West. They took it because not having it
exposed them militarily (as well as domestically made them looked weak).

For all his faults, Kissinger understands those things better than most public
figures in their public speaking (are willing to admit, at least).

~~~
gandhium
> They took it because not having it exposed them militarily

Ok, I'll bait - it exposed them to what?

~~~
mc32
It's advantageous to have a warm deep water port [Sevastopol] so you can
mobilize your navy easily in the middle of winter --as well as allows for the
trade of good during winter months-- both things which allow offensive and
defensive options.

~~~
gandhium
They already had a warm deep water port there before Sevastopol.

Any other "exposures"?

------
07d046
Following their World Cup protest, I discovered that some of Pussy Riot's
music is on Spotify, in case anybody is interested.

Edit: I guess people aren't interested. My bad.

~~~
ddingus
Upvoted. Some of their music is good.

------
Tycho
Any news about the Russian government should be read with the understanding
that the Western political establishment is _desperate_ to find a pretext for
entering the war in Syria and deposing the Assad regime, which has the
military backing of Russia.

~~~
tptacek
Your theory here being that Masha Gessen is collaborating with the Trump
administration.

~~~
Tycho
No.

~~~
tptacek
Then help me understand what your point could be about this New Yorker piece?

~~~
daxorid
Not the OP, but the obvious interpretation is that the Trump administration is
not only not equivalent to, but in opposition to, the "Western political
establishment".

c.f. the "Deep State".

True or not, it's a charitable read of OP.

~~~
tptacek
I'm fine with s/Trump administration/deep state; the question stands.

