BY
Numerous are the occasions that Igor Kononenko has
been mentioned by this blog. Not once has it been mentioned in a
particularly positive way – in fact often the opposite.
Mr Kononenko is a long
standing friend of President Poroshenko and is the President’s (metaphorical)
leg breaker within the Verkhovna Rada. He is a man who reflects the very
worst of the old established methods of mixing business by highly dubious
methods and politics. He is a man whose appetites the President has not
seen fit to rein in despite frequently being personally and directly informed
of Mr Kononenko’s questionable actions by numerous diplomats and a
continuously unfavorable media.
He is, in short, loathed
by large swathes of the Ukrainian constituency – including many of his
parliamentary peers.
It is perhaps no real surprise therefore that
immediately prior to New Year Mr Kononenko apparently involuntarily and
unknowingly ingested mercury to a level 50 times that expected to be found in
the blood.
There are of course
questions.
Was it all ingested in
one go, or did it accumulate over time? (Mr Kononenko is somebody who
being at the top of the food chain in Ukraine and therefore stupidly rich, can
afford to eat that which sits atop of the food chain. Is he particularly
fond of fish? Swordfish and Tuna being near the top of the seafood chain
contain far more mercury than the smaller fish further down the food chain.
What does an oligarch eat, and how often to they eat it?
Is he addicted to dental
work and has developed an amalgam habit?
Has the mercury come
from an unhealthy interest in gaining control over coal mining and coal burning
assets? Too many (persuasive) site visits?
Other sources?
Gold mining or similar?
All the above would tend
to be accumulative rather than a single shot mercury ingestion.
It seems very unlikely
that sufficient mercury salts could be added to anything that would not raise
alarm with taste buds in some form or another.
Quicksilver seems the
most unlikely of all.
Then there is the
question of absorption rates into the bloodstream vis a vis what is otherwise expelled by the body doing what the
body does.
Indeed mercury vapour
has the highest absorption rate, but how easy is it to expose somebody like Mr
Kononenko deliberately to that amount of mercury in one go? Air
fresheners in a car? (Would his driver and security not also be ill).
If he is asthmatic, tampering with his inhaler?
Indeed the FSB has been
accused in very recent history of using mercury to poison people like Karinina
Moskalenko and others but (despite polonium-210 tea exploits and
other toxic concoctions whipped up in the SVR laboratories in Yasenevo)
it seems an unlikely method to go after somebody as loathed as Mr Kononenko and
subtlety is not necessarily required.
An IED or similar
explosive incident involving his motorcade, home or whatever/where ever could
be easily blamed on The Kremlin by Ukraine and on Ukrainians by The Kremlin, on
Mr Kononenko’s untamed business appetite and methodology regarding how he does
business – or anything within the numerous shades of black and grey in which he
moves.
It also has to be noted
that the level of mercury apparently in his blood was not enough to kill him,
but certainly enough to incapacitate him for a while.
It may be that if
accumulated over time, it was discovered before continued exposure/ingestion
became potentially lethal as the effects of mercury poisoning over time would
undoubtedly take the afflicted to a Doctor before fatal dose was reached.
If ingested in one go
and yet clearly an insufficient level required for a fatal dose but sufficient
to incapacitate for a while, is it therefore more a matter of somebody sending
Mr Kononenko a message that he is not untouchable nor unreachable?
If so, if discounting
The Kremlin, considering just how universally loathed Mr Kononenko is, there
will be quite a long list of those he has already wronged, and also a fairly
long list of those who already know they are in his sights as he continues to
feed his insatiable appetite for wealth, economic control and associated power
via very questionable methods.
All of that said, it is
necessary to state that Mr Kononenko deserves to be in jail – not assassinated
or otherwise deliberately poisoned. No amount of justification equates to
legitimisation.
However as nobody of his
stature (regardless of political party or deed) goes to jail, perhaps
somebody has decided to resort to a Plan B to send him a message he would
otherwise brush off and ignore.
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