Fleeing Putin's Poison

Russian journalists and opposition figures living in exile across Europe have been falling ill in circumstances that point to deliberate poisoning. The suspected perpetrator is the Kremlin.

This Finnish documentary from director Marko Lönnqvist follows investigators from Bellingcat and The Insider as they piece together a pattern of suspected state-sponsored poisonings targeting Russian dissidents abroad. Three cases sit at the centre of the film: journalist Irina Bablojan, war reporter Jelena Kostjušenko, and opposition activist Natalia Arno. According to the findings of journalist Roman Dobrohotov, who himself fled Russia in 2021, Bablojan and Kostjušenko were most likely poisoned with a chlorine compound, while Arno is believed to have been exposed to a nerve agent.

Dobrohotov's outlet, The Insider, is the same organisation that, alongside Bellingcat, identified those responsible for the 2018 Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal. His testimony places these cases within a long history of Russian security services using poison as a tool of political intimidation, one that has intensified under Putin.

What makes the method so effective is its deniability. Difficult to prove, slow to manifest, it leaves victims doubting their own bodies. Fear, as much as physical harm, is the point.