Physician, daughter poisoned during trip to Moscow
LOS ANGELES -- A physician well-known in this city's Russian community and her adult daughter were poisoned during a trip to Moscow last month, US Embassy officials confirmed yesterday, the latest in a string of Russian poisoning cases that have sparked international intrigue.
Officials said Marina Kovalevsky, 49, and her daughter Yana, 26, were poisoned with thallium, an odorless, colorless toxin originally suspected in the death of a former Russian spy in London last year.
Their plight has roiled LA's large community of Russian expatriates. The women arrived at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday and were taken in wheelchairs past news media to two waiting ambulances and placed on gurneys. Both are American citizens who have lived in the Los Angeles area for more than 15 years.
Russian officials told the Moscow news media that investigators believed the pair were poisoned in an attempt to cover up the theft of their jewelry, although family members who have been in contact with the women said no mention had been made to them of any items being stolen.
The mother and daughter traveled to Moscow in mid-February to attend the wedding of a friend's niece, said their cousin Olga Tabarovskaya, and fell ill on Feb. 24. Tabarovskaya said she and other family members at first believed the women were suffering from food poisoning and were shocked when tests indicated thallium. They had been staying at one of Moscow's fanciest hotels.
The women's symptoms included nausea, diarrhea, muscle weakness, and paralysis.
The role of poison in Russia's hard-edged political scene came to international prominence last year when former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko fell fatally ill in London. Litvinenko, a critic of Russian leaders, died three weeks after being hospitalized with what doctors first suspected was thallium poisoning. Tests indicated he had suffered a lethal dose of polonium-210 radiation poisoning. 