The Times is reporting that Viktor Yushchenko was indeed poisoned:
Doctors at Vienna’s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are within days of identifying the substance that left Mr Yushchenko’s face disfigured with cysts and lesions, Nikolai Korpan told The Times in a telephone interview.
Specialists in Britain, the United States and France had helped to establish that it was a biological agent, a chemical agent or, most likely, a rare poison that struck him down in the run-up to the presidential election, he said. Doctors needed to examine Mr Yushchenko again at the clinic in Vienna to confirm their diagnosis but were in no doubt that the substance was administered deliberately, he said.
The diagnosis of deliberate poisoning is an explosive one, proving what has long been suspected. The next question is who is responsible for the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko? Was it forces close to Prime Minister Yanukovych or perhaps closer to Moscow? What poison was used?
It’s clear that someone wanted Yushchenko dead, and that the forces that want to keep the Ukraine as a vassal state to Moscow are willing to do whatever it takes to see to that end. Fortunately it appears as the pro-democracy movement has a considerable amount of power — but given what they’re up against and the fact that the revote could be as corrupt as the first, who knows how long it may be before the peaceful Orange Revolution is countered with violence by the pro-Moscow forces.
