'Death in 20 mins': How Ukrainian intelligence nearly killed Russian officer with beer

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) recently foiled an assassination attempt by preventing a high-ranking Russian officer from drinking beer specially delivered to him from a "girlfriend".

The beer, allegedly laced with a British-made version of banned military-grade nerve agent VX, had the power to cause an agonising death in just 20 minutes, the FSB said in a statement.

In that regard, the FSB has detained a resident of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), who was allegedly involved in the covert assassination attempt, and was arrested by its officers before he could deliver the beer bottles.

How it happened

Several months ago, the targeted officer claimed that he had met a girl called Polina on an online app. The two got chatting, quickly moving to Telegram.

"She sent me photos and videos from the gym several times, all roughly the same. After a few months of our communication, she said she wanted to give me a gift, which she would deliver through a friend," the officer said, as per a Russian media report.

Polina's "friend" turned out to be the now-detained man, who was allegedly promised $5,000—by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR)—for delivering two packages of the poisoned beer, which the FSB claimed were British-made.

Polina was not real either—she was allegedly a fake account created by the GUR for the operation.

"Based on the results of the tests on the confiscated bottles, it was established that the beer contained a mixture of highly toxic poisons, colchicine and tert-butyl bicyclophosphate (an analogue of the military-grade nerve agent VX, banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention), produced in Britain, which, when consumed, causes an agonising death within 20 minutes," the FSB said.

The man had called the Russian officer, giving him a time and place to meet. The officer had already accepted the package from him when the FSB made a crucial interruption and detained the man.

"I was ordered to carefully place the package on the ground. After which they explained to me that the bag contained beer, which contained a military-grade poison intended to eliminate me, and that Polina's account was used by Ukrainian intelligence officers," the officer added.

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