Putin critic tells US senators says he narrowly escaped death after mystery poisoning

A Russian opposition leader sharply critical of President Vladimir Putin told US lawmakers Wednesday that he narrowly escaped death last month after being poisoned with a substance his doctors still haven’t been able to identify.

In congressional testimony, Vladimir Kara-Murza said his survival shows there are “near misses” in the Russian government’s campaign to silence its political opponents.

He told lawmakers the official diagnosis was “toxic action by an undefined substance.” He said he suffered multiple organ failure and was placed in a medically induced coma for several days after being hospitalised on February 2. The episode was reminiscent of a mysterious poisoning he suffered two years earlier when he nearly died from kidney failure.

Kara-Murza’s appearance before the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee is part of a broader inquiry into what the panel’s chairman, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has called Russia’s “misadventures throughout the world.” Graham is one of a few congressional Republicans to openly criticise US President Donald Trump’s push for closer ties with Russia after US intelligence agencies concluded Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

The purpose of the hearing was to make a case for creating a “counter-Russia” account in the US government’s budget, according to Graham. The money would be used to finance and empower countries and organisations “that are fighting back against Putin’s regime,” he said.

“It’s in American taxpayers’ interests that we push back against Putin’s efforts to dismantle democracy throughout the world,” Graham added.