Another suspicious poisoning..

UNIAN carries a sinister story today about an unexplained poisoning of Borys Penchuk, author of 'The Donetsk Mafia', the the only book written to date describing the turf wars that took place in the early and mid '90's in Donetsk and their alleged participants. Almost 60 'businessmen' and others came to a 'sticky end' at that time - including members of Penchuk's family. Many of the surviving main players of these wars are now at the top of PoR.. Many of the businesses of the victims are now owned by the same players..

The foreword to the Russian language version can be read in English here. An updated, Ukrainian language version of the book, entitled "Donetsk mafia - reload" has just been published.

Anyhow, here's a loose translation of the UNIAN article:

"The presentation tour of the "Donetsk mafia - reload" book, which was due to take place on 21st August in Lviv and 22nd August in Lutsk, has been suspended because its author, Borys Penchuk, has been taken ill with acute poisoning.

Penchuk's health deteriorated on 20th August after his return from Zhytomyr, where a presentation of the book also took place.

Penchuk was diagnosed with poisoning, but believes that he could not have been poisoned with food because he ate nothing on that day, not even a snack. His temperature rose to 39 degrees centigrade. Penchuk underwent a medical examination in hospital where he was diagnosed with "poisoning with strong-acting substances". Experts are trying to establish what kind of toxin is in his body, but the absence of specialized equipment in Ukraine is hampering diagnosis.

Doctors note that Penchuk's condition is causing concern, and possible consequences are unknown at present."

The books are a rather haphazard collection of numerous postings from various internet sites, investigative TV broadcast transcripts, newspaper interviews, gruesome photos, and so on, but are nevertheless valuable because they provide some insight into what happened at that time. Whether any other author or participant will ever write anything better remains to be seen.