'Russian opponent poisoned with heavy metals'

Young and willing to do anything to fight the regime of Tsar Vladimir Putin.

This would be precisely the reason why 32-year-old Elvira Vikhareva, an opposition politician, was poisoned with heavy metal salts.

Not new for the Kremlin, used to silencing the opposition with similar methods, as evidenced by the case of Alexei Navalny.

According to the Russian agency Sota, the poisoning of Vikhareva took place several months ago.

She herself told of the symptoms, which arrived for the first time between the end of November and the beginning of December, and then returned in February.

Stomach pains, increased heart rate, numbness in extremities, muscle spasms, fainting and hair loss.

These are just some of the consequences encountered by the young politician who, precisely because of the effects of the poison on her body, avoided showing her face in the last few interviews.

Laboratory analyzes revealed that Vikhareva's blood contained potassium dichromate, a highly toxic and carcinogenic substance.

The 32-year-old had already told of having suffered threats and pressure in the past.

Originally from Irkutsk, Siberia, Vikhareva worked for a while in TV and majored in journalism.

Then came the political struggle, which she came close to in her early twenties during the 2011 voter fraud protests.

In 2019 he was still in the streets against the exclusion of dozens of candidates from the elections.

She too suffered the same fate in 2022, as she writes on her website: she intended to run for city council in her Moscow district, but a court prevented her from doing so, citing irregularities in her registration documents.

The year before, she had tried to get into the State Duma, losing, according to the results of the electronic vote, against TV presenter and United Russia candidate Timofey Bazhenov.

In an interview with Le Monde a few months ago you said you had no right to judge Russian politicians who were leaving fearing for their lives.

For her, however, it was different.

She knew the risks, "from prison to poison," but she felt she had a moral responsibility to stay, especially now.