Moscow: Former Russian premier Yegor Gaidar was being treated in a Moscow hospital yesterday, several days after falling violently ill at a conference in Ireland, his daughter said.
Gaidar, who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, began vomiting and fainted during a conference on Irish-Russian relations on Friday, and was rushed into intensive care at a hospital. Participants at the conference outside of Dublin said he had complained of feeling ill for much of the day.
"Doctors still can't figure out a reason for what happened," Maria Gaidar said in comments broadcast on Ekho Moskvy radio.
The 50-year-old economist returned to Moscow earlier this week, and doctors at a Moscow hospital considered his condition to be satisfactory, his spokeswoman Irina Sergeyeva said.
Russian news reports quoted Gaidar aides as saying there was no indication so far of foul play, but they gave no further details or possible reasons for his illness.
Gaidar's illness comes amid heightened suspicions in Britain about the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London just one day before Gaidar fell ill. Another former KGB spy who met with Litvinenko on the day he was allegedly poisoned, Andrei Lugovoy, served as bodyguard to Gaidar at one point.
A spokesman for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said "we have no evidence of anything untoward about this".
