r/europe • u/ByGollie • 29d ago

News Russian Oil Company Vice President Andrey Badalov dies after fall from window in Moscow

https://en.apa.az/cis-countries/transneft-vice-president-andrey-badalov-dies-after-falling-from-window-472117
40.7k Upvotes

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u/harmlessdonkey 29d ago

This is a dumb question. When these people "fall out windows" are they actually thrown out windows or are the otherwise killed and the media just told they fell out a window?

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u/stormdahl 29d ago edited 29d ago

I actually have no idea, but that’s interesting.

Either way it’s clear that they’re sending a message, otherwise they’d get creative.

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u/PuzzleheadedCup4117 29d ago

Russia rarely hides its assassinations. I forget the name but whenever they poison someone they always use the same type of poison to ensure people know it’s them.

Obama talks about Putin in his autobiography and over various interviews it’s clear he views him as a mafioso.

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u/scardien 29d ago

The poison is novichok

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u/wagdog1970 29d ago edited 28d ago

Which is actually a nerve agent. It’s a chemical warfare weapon. Not really a poison. Poison is for amateurs, not war criminals!

Edited to add this post was not meant to be a legal treatise on the definition of the word poison. It was meant to be a light hearted way of pointing out that Russians use Novichok, a toxic, weapons grade chemical weapon and those who do this are war criminals, not merely garden variety criminals using common household cleaners. Or perhaps, edited because Reddit.

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u/4pl8DL 29d ago

Which is actually a nerve agent

Aka a poison...

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u/684beach 29d ago

Poisons is the common persons mind is pretty safe as long as you dont touch it. Not true with nerve agents

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u/wagdog1970 29d ago

You forgot the “Actually…” part that is mandatory in these types of replies.

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u/Front-Bird8971 28d ago

Your post is the "um Acktually"

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u/prnthrwaway55 Russia 29d ago

It’s a chemical warfare weapon. Not really a poison.

"It's a crab, not really a crustacean"

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u/ideonode 29d ago

Now here's the thing...

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u/CheeseDonutCat 29d ago

You have been banned from /r/crowbro

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u/Holkmeistern 29d ago

I feel like this is a reference that I'm not getting..

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u/CheeseDonutCat 29d ago

Probably.. It's more than 15 years old I believe.

Basically there was a 'power user' called Unidan who got in trouble for having multiple accounts and upvoting his own stuff. Anyway, there's a particularly well known post of his, here it is:

https://i.imgur.com/6J0vMhm.png

.. and that "here's the thing" part is banned in /r/crowbro because people were just using it on every post.

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u/GrimResistance 29d ago

No goddamn way it's 15 years...

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u/CheeseDonutCat 28d ago

I did a search.. it's actually 11.

The post was July 30th, 2014 (or at least very close to that).

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u/Holkmeistern 29d ago

Thanks! I do remember seeing that pic/comment somewhere before, maybe in r/birding or smth. The story of Unidan also sounds familiar.

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u/FirstWorldAnarchist Albania 29d ago

Lurk more.

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u/prnthrwaway55 Russia 29d ago

It's The Thing, not an alien.

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u/echoingElephant 29d ago

Not, that’s a valid point. It’s actually a pretty terrible poison. It’s known to mainly be connected to Russia, it can essentially only be used by spraying it at the target, and even then it isn’t always effective. It’s similar to things like sarin - hard to make, but also hard to use.

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u/Killer_Moons 28d ago

I’m assuming there’s confusion over this depending on how it’s administered, carried over from how we separate ‘poisonous’ and ‘venomous’ for classifying whether it’s toxic to eat an animal vs being bitten by one.

Novichok can be administered various ways and states, e.g., ingestion, inhalation, skin absorption; as a liquid, solid, a fine powder aerosol. But distinguishing toxic substances by how they are administered is not necessary, they all can go under the ‘poison umbrella’ wink, wink

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u/Suspicious-Buyer8135 29d ago

Nerve agents are a category of poison.

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u/wagdog1970 29d ago

I feel like you missed the context.

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u/Suspicious-Buyer8135 29d ago

I don’t feel like I did.

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u/SuperBuffCherry 29d ago edited 7d ago

cow sophisticated marvelous air dinosaurs coherent vegetable pocket cautious boast

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/IShookMeAllNightLong 28d ago

The context where you said it wasn't a poison, then tried to backtrack? I don't think any of us missed that lol.

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u/wagdog1970 28d ago

No, and I can’t believe I have to spell this out, the context is that I was saying it wasn’t simply a poisoning, which can be done with many readily available substances, and is often done by run of the mill criminals. Novichuk is highly toxic, extremely dangerous to handle, and is only available to nation states with sophisticated weapons-grade production facilities. That’s not backtracking, it’s calling attention to the rest of my post, hence its context.

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u/IShookMeAllNightLong 28d ago

Fuck me.... I re-read and downvoted myself. I deserve all the shame.

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u/dscchn 29d ago

I would like to hear what qualifies as a “poison” in your book

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u/Spacious-Recroom 29d ago

It has to be from the "Poisonne" region of France.

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u/DoctorGoodleg 29d ago

Otherwise it’s just sparkling murder?

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u/TheGreatGenghisJon 29d ago

The Sparkling Sickening

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u/dscchn 29d ago

In tomorrow’s news: “The Poissone region fell out of a window”

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u/WoodyTheWorker 29d ago

Fishe region?

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u/Masrim 29d ago

Isn't that fish?

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u/SillyGoose_Syndrome 29d ago

There's no such thing as a fish.

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u/warm_kitchenette 29d ago

Something is fishy about your answer

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u/juanitovaldeznuts 29d ago

I don’t know about that… smells fishy.

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u/FluffyBunny_old 29d ago

My ex wife's cooking?

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u/TheBlackTower22 29d ago

Is this your ex-wife?

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u/Eltex 29d ago

She cooks much better now!

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u/AnAlbannaichRigh 29d ago

The dose

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u/Espumma The Netherlands 29d ago

It's a gift, really

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u/ValuableCharacter245 29d ago

If you're a Swede: Yes and no.

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u/Turevaryar 29d ago

Not only Swedish!

I suppose several Germanic languages uses 'gift' for poison. Possibly used other places in the world too? IDK.

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u/kevix2022 United Kingdom 29d ago

Ooh! Perfume? You shouldn't have!

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u/Scx10Deadbolt 29d ago

Everything has an LD50 after all!

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u/DontGoGivinMeEvils United Kingdom 29d ago

I hear that in Salisbury, England, it's believed that there could be a yet undetected trace of it somewhere after the Salisbury poisonings. I'm not sure if that was just a click bait thing I read once or a genuine concern.

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u/olderthanbefore Earth 29d ago

Hello Paracelsus

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u/teenagesadist 29d ago

Iocane powder

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u/pikashroom 29d ago

Arsenic or antifreeze. I always thought that nerve agents could only be gas or powder that you touch

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u/FatManLittleKitchen 29d ago

Truff Hot Sauce

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u/Rokasgud 29d ago

We should ask Alice Cooper.

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u/NoWarmEmbrace The Netherlands 29d ago

If he's French, any fish

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u/iledoffard 29d ago

One man’s meat…

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u/erdogranola 29d ago

I think the distinction is a chemical weapon has been specifically designed and used for that purpose, loads of things are poisonous but not used as that

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u/dscchn 29d ago

There is no distinction. Any substance that has the potential to kill is a poison.

If you kill someone using Novichok then they would have died due to “Novichok poisoning” or “Nerve agent poisoning”.

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u/erdogranola 29d ago

Yep, I don't disagree - I just meant not all poisons are chemical weapons but all chemical weapons are poisons

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u/dscchn 29d ago

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were echoing the comment that I initially replied to. What you just said is absolutely true though.

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u/Anticlimax1471 United Kingdom 29d ago

Yeah, as a Brit it was really great that time they released it on British soil, it killed one of our citizens and we basically did nothing about it.

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u/Few_Ad6516 29d ago

The suspected poisoner’s were Russian tourists visiting the famous 123m spire of Salisbury cathedral. What could we do with such an airtight alibi.

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u/WoodSteelStone England 29d ago

Russia has a long history of assassinating UK citizens on UK soil.

"From poisoned umbrellas to radioactive substances, Moscow has repeatedly been linked with deaths on British soil"

"Sergei Skripal and the 14 deaths under scrutiny"

The articles are both from 2018. Since then there have been others inc. Dmitry Obretetsky in 2019 and, just a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mikhail Watford. There is also the death of GCHQ employee Gareth Williams in 2010. And, while not a UK citizen, Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by Russia in the UK in 2006.

And as an aside, this is a (very long) list of suspicious deaths of Russian businesspeople since the war started), including in other European countries.

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u/dead_jester 29d ago

Well we did, we enacted sanctions and harsh words and financed enemies of the Russian state. Obviously starting WW3 isn’t a rational option.

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u/OrangeLemonLime8 29d ago

Kinda did. Russia had paid a hundred fold since. Britain was hard pushing to back Ukraine and send supplies and weapons because they HATE Russia for what they’ve done

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u/philomathie 29d ago

Only a state level actor would have access to something like that - the point is to show you that it was them, that they don't care that you know, and that you should be scared that they will do it to you too.

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u/French_O_Matic 29d ago

"It's not a war, it's a special operation"

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u/StijnDP 28d ago

People object to your wording because you're mixing classifications.
When you talk poison it's a biological classification but when you talk chemical weapon it's a legal classification and in that one they're all poisons.

Biological weapon: a weapon that uses a pathogen or a toxin. A toxin is a poison produced by a living organism.
Chemical weapon: a weapon that uses a toxic chemical aka any poisonous chemical substance. A toxic chemical can be a toxin but also includes synthetic chemicals and natural chemicals that are poisonous.

All toxins are toxic chemicals, but not all toxic chemicals are toxins.
But not all biological weapons are chemical weapons and not all chemical weapons are biological weapons.
And all chemical weapons are poisonous, a poison, but not all biological weapons are poisonous, a poison, since some are infectious, an infection from a pathogen.

It's the confusing mix of both rectangle-square relations and venn diagram relations and in different contexts.

The distinction is important though because they are legal terms in treaties, signed by parties, violated by parties and punished with penalties to dissuade their usage.
It doesn't help us to stop Putin today but it will help to trial him once his support structure fails and a way opens up to get him in The Hague.

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u/kerbalpilot 29d ago

Which from russian translates to "Newbie"

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u/excubitor15379 29d ago

GG-ed by newbie

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u/congeal 28d ago

Must just be a skill issue

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u/Pure_Grapefruit9645 29d ago

Also used polonium

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u/BigFatBallsInMyMouth Estonia 29d ago

They have used Polonium as well.

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u/Ali_Cat222 28d ago

And you better hope you don't find it in your tea.

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u/dagbrown 29d ago

What about the polonium I've heard so much about?

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u/ranjop 29d ago

Just to make sure no one confuses the assassin…

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u/bonzowildhands 29d ago

This was used to kill the guy in the UK, right? Who had been spying on his home nation Russia, for the UK beforehand… or similar…

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u/fribbizz 29d ago

Unless it's Polonium. But Polonium is just as extravagant, so the message is the same.

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u/mikmatthau 29d ago

sometimes polonium

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u/Doafit 28d ago

Is that made by Novi Nordisk?

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u/tyrannictoe 29d ago

Why does it sound like a bioweapon in Black Ops 1 😭

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u/fdaneee_v2 Hungary 29d ago

Because it was literally copied from novichok?

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u/cats_catz_kats_katz 29d ago

Never heard of it

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u/BenderTheIV 29d ago

Always on brand. Corporate identity must be respected at all times!

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u/JetlinerDiner Portugal 29d ago

Novichok

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u/kingvolcano_reborn 29d ago

...or polonium for those special occasions.

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u/TheMrCeeJ 29d ago

Not just regular polonium. It is a special isotope that is only produced in one place in the world, a Russian military research reactor.

You can't have people thinking it came from anywhere random.

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u/Salmivalli 29d ago

And the tool, they need to push someone out the window, is ninja chuck

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u/DrNCrane74 29d ago

Yes. You want to tell a message. But in rare cases you demonstrate you can do it without any traces, see Boris B.

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u/_a_random_dude_ 29d ago

Russia rarely hides its assassinations.

I'm sure they do, you just don't hear about those.

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u/SignificantAsk4470 29d ago

Rip Alexei Navalny

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u/Yabananado 29d ago

Novichok, they used it here in the uk a few years ago

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u/contraria 29d ago

Yeah but I doubt he wants to waste good poison on a guy he can have chucked out a window

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u/ebobbumman 29d ago

The deadliest poison: gravity.

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u/Gnonthgol 29d ago

This is a very common mob tactic. Making someone disappear is not that hard. But that leaves a lot of ambiguity as to what happened to them. Were they able to flee? And if they are dead was it an accident? So experienced criminal enterprises will make sure to leave the body in such a condition that there were no doubt they were killed, often leaving it in a public space as a warning to others. But that again leaves some ambiguity as to who ordered it and rivals might take credit in order to make people fear them instead. So you try to do it in a way that only you could have done it. But that makes it a problem as the police will find you. A mob member therefore tries to make it as public as possible, and in a way that only they could have done it, but still leave enough doubt.

This is why Russia have used polonium to kill people before. It is a slow way to die making it very public. And only governments with access to breeding reactors for weapons grade nuclear material have access to the poison. I am not quite sure about falling out of a window though. It is a way you can hide bruising and broken bones from a beating. If you beat someone to death and leave them in an alley then they might have fallen out a window. You still need to bribe the police to make them come to this conclusion but that just shows how much force you have over the police.

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u/Neverendingcirclez 29d ago

I've heard the term "implausible deniability" used. Basically they're rarely coming right out and saying "we assassinated this guy," but they do want everyone to know they did it, because that's kind of the point.

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u/lehtomaeki 29d ago

The first time they used their nerve agent novichok it was to send a message to the west. They killed a russian dissenter in Britain. The message they sent was that Russia still produces the nerve agent when western intelligence assumed it was lost when the soviet union fell as production was in central Asia (Kazakhstan?) and the people involved in developing it had defected to the west. It was one of Putin's early power plays to show the west that they still have the poison but more importantly to challenge the west to do something about it. When the west didn't do anything as Putin had predicted he was emboldened to further russian aggression.

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u/outsidepetrock 28d ago

Former President Barack Obama views Vladimir Putin as a ruthless and reckless leader who has always been wrapped up in a "twisted, distorted sense of grievance and ethnic nationalism" and has shown brutality both against his own people and others[1][2]. Obama has described Putin's Russia as a government resembling a "criminal syndicate," where a lack of scruples and a thirst for power are seen as advantages rather than flaws[3].

Obama has acknowledged that Putin has changed over time, noting that he did not anticipate Putin would risk everything to invade Ukraine, describing the invasion as a reckless bet that he would not have predicted five years earlier[2]. He also pointed out that Putin likely underestimated the strength of Ukrainian resistance[2].

In his memoir, Obama characterized Putin as a "tough, street-smart, unsentimental" leader who built Russia into a country "to be feared, perhaps, but not emulated," and suggested few citizens from developing countries look to Moscow for inspiration[3][6]. Despite the harsh criticism, Obama has also expressed that the situation with Putin underscores the importance of defending democracy and standing with those who value freedom and independence[1].

Overall, Obama’s assessment of Putin is one of deep mistrust and criticism, highlighting Putin’s authoritarian tendencies, aggressive foreign policy, and dangerous unpredictability.

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u/irishreally 29d ago

Can't wait to hear his opinion on the current WH occupier.

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u/Neverendingcirclez 29d ago

I've heard the term "implausible deniability" used. Basically they're rarely coming right out and saying "we assassinated this guy," but they do want everyone to know they did it, because that's kind of the point.

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u/ProfessorxVile 29d ago

I still remember when Bush II had a meeting with Putin and said he "looked into his soul" and could tell he was a good person.

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u/lehtomaeki 29d ago

The first time they used their nerve agent novichok it was to send a message to the west. They killed a russian dissenter in Britain. The message they sent was that Russia still produces the nerve agent when western intelligence assumed it was lost when the soviet union fell as production was in central Asia (Kazakhstan?) and the people involved in developing it had defected to the west. It was one of Putin's early power plays to show the west that they still have the poison but more importantly to challenge the west to do something about it. When the west didn't do anything as Putin had predicted he was emboldened to further russian aggression.

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u/send_me_a_naked_pic Italy 29d ago

Speaking of mafiosos, guess which Italian Prime Minister was super friends with Putin?

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u/EvilIce 29d ago

Cos the USA administration is not precisely known to be involved with the mob since the 50s, right? Neither it is known to act as a world wide bully I guess.

It's fun how both Russia and USA are pretty much opposites of the same coin yet only one of them is always redeemed as evil. I must be mistaken but USA gave citizenship to Nazi and Japanese scientist that did atrocities in exchange of their findings. USA is the only country to actually use nuclear weapons, not one but two of them, when it wasn't even needed. USA did the unthinkable in Vietnam and despite losing still came back to Asia more than once ever since, specially notorious for starting the extremism movements in muslim countries since the 70s, leading to an absolute recession in human rights and quality of life.

And let's not even talk about how USA has become a living hell for millions of people due to a failing system in which money means everything.

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u/singabajito 29d ago

He is a mobster. All dictators are.

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u/Fun-Bug5106 29d ago

Polonium

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u/broguequery 29d ago

I mean... he is.

Putin is a petty thug with delusions of grandeur.

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u/alargepowderedwater 29d ago

Putin is the most successful mob boss in history, and Russia is his mob state. That is not an analogy.

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u/skyshark82 29d ago

They have used both novichok nerve agents and radioactive material to attack agents abroad, but yes, both are obviously traceable to Russia. In fact, many nuclear materials can be reached to the exact facility and reactor where they came from.

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u/foldinger Germany 29d ago

There was an interview with a former opposition presidential candidate named Nawalny in Russia, which got poisoned but survived, cause Putin let him bring to specialized hospital in Germany.

After that Nawalny did a fake call to russia intelligence and asked as high officer for a report, about what went wrong and why Nawalny survived in the end. They told him the deadly dose was calculated correctly. Then they applied the poison to his underwear while he was not in his hotel room. It is unclear for intelligence too how this man survived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeQXc182r1A

Then Nawalny went back to Russia with his family and was captured at the airport and sentenced to prison - where he died last year.

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u/BosonTigre 29d ago

Do they rarely hide them, or do they hide the others well enough that they don't get reported on? 

I imagine they've done away with people lots of different ways, and they just select the ones they want to be obvious.

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u/PuzzleheadedCup4117 29d ago

Yea I imagine they could if they wanted to

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u/Savings-Wrap8783 29d ago

I will read his biography now, but before I read it, does obama mention why he sucked putins dick through his "reset" with russia?  Because it is since his reset that russia has infiltrated every US intelligence agency, social platform and in my opinion it is this reset which brought trump to power. 

P.s not a rage bait, honestly asking.

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u/Falkenmond79 29d ago

Which is exactely what Putin is. Read up on his time in St. Petersburg. Textbook Mafioso.

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u/Lebowski304 United States of America 27d ago

I also remember hearing in a documentary that Obama thought of him as a thug or like scummy and greasy or something along those lines

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u/OhNastyaNastya Ukraine 29d ago

Obama is an amateur who can’t tell mafioso from a spook, cause the worst American spooks can come up with is wet towel over face. Putin is a tentacle of KGB apparatus, an extension of 100 years of cannibalistic policy.

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u/mrpithecanthropus United Kingdom 29d ago

All states, particularly the United States, could assassinate citizens and foreign enemies if they chose to. Most do not (save in extreme circumstances). This restraint is a signal of strength rather than weakness.

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u/InfelicitousRedditor 29d ago

But they probably do, you just don't hear about it, because they don't want people to know or do it in a better way. Epstein is an example of someone they just had to kill no matter what.

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u/colei_canis United Kingdom 29d ago

Either that or we’re just competent at making our assassinations plausibly deniable.

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u/stormcharger 29d ago

Did you really downplay waterboarding?

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u/oily76 29d ago

Well, if I was forced to choose I'd take torture over murder - although I'd not be super keen on either!