A Russian journalist, Elena Kostyuchenko, never thought she had been poisoned when she suddenly fell ill while traveling on a train to Berlin. Even though four of his fellow journalists have faced attempted murder as an implication of their reporting.
“When you work as an investigative reporter in Russia, you are always careful,” he told Reuters. “There are lots of protocols that you follow all the time. But when I was in Europe I totally forgot about all these safety measures.”
German prosecutors are investigating whether Kostyuchenko, who is living in hiding, was the victim of an attempted murder when he fell ill in October 2022.
Symptoms of poisoning began with disorientation and abdominal pain on the way from Munich to Berlin and continued for several weeks. By the time he realized that he might have been poisoned, it was too late for him to be able to identify the poison.
“I had to take my rings off because my fingers looked like sausages,” he said, describing swelling as one of his symptoms. Several months later, she was still exhausted and could only work three hours a day.
Enemies of Russian President Vladimir Putin living abroad have been poisoned, including former undercover agent Sergei Skripal, who survived, and Sergei Litvinenko, who eventually died. A former Chechen rebel was also killed in Berlin. A German court ruled his death a Russian-inspired murder.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in the series of killings.
“That fits with Putin’s narrative, that we cannot forgive traitors,” Kostyuchenko said. “But I’ve never worked with the secret services… Somehow I thought that in Europe, I was safe.”
At a time when some European Union capitals are seen as potential safe havens by Russian activists and journalists feeling at risk at home, the possibility that they too could be targeted abroad is a scary turn of events.
“When I’m in Europe, I completely forget about security measures, like when I was discussing my trip to Munich, I used Facebook Messenger,” said Kostyuchenko, a foreign correspondent who exposed Russia’s alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
When doctors told him it was likely poisoned, his initial reaction was to laugh.
She is one of three independent Russian female journalists who were apparently poisoned while abroad in the same period. All three experienced similar symptoms.
“We can confirm that the investigation into the attempted murder of Elena Kostyuchenko is still pending,” a spokesman for the Berlin prosecutor’s office said Friday. (ah/ft)