‘It’s got me’ – lonely death of Soviet scientist poisoned by novichok
by Andrew Roth and Tom McCarthy from World news | The Guardian on (#3JTE1)
Andrei Zheleznyakov was working on chemical weapons in the 1980s when a hood malfunction exposed him to the deadly nerve agent
Before former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury on 4 March, the only other person confirmed to suffer the effects of novichok was a young Soviet chemical weapons scientist.
"Circles appeared before my eyes: red and orange. A ringing in my ears, I caught my breath. And a sense of fear: like something was about to happen," Andrei Zheleznyakov told the now-defunct newspaper Novoye Vremya, describing the 1987 weapons lab incident that exposed him to a nerve agent that would eventually kill him. "I sat down on a chair and told the guys: 'It's got me.'"
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