Former US Ambassador to Ukraine and now Senior Director of the Eurasia Center Atlantic Council John Herbst experienced symptoms of departure a few months before the start of the war. This is reported by the Agency, citing two unnamed sources.
As the journalists noted, over the past two years, two more journalists writing about Russia, including Hristo Grozev, as well as the head of the Free Russia Foundation Natalia Arno.
An interlocutor of the Agency, who is familiar with Herbst, said that the FBI had launched an investigation into the deteriorating health of the ex-ambassador. The Atlantic Council is also aware of the situation, added a source working in one of Washington's lobbying organizations. Herbst himself declined to comment, the journalists were unable to find out information about the results of the FBI investigation and the health of the former ambassador.
Natalia Arno noticed the symptoms of poisoning when she was in Prague. Shortly before that, she discovered that the door to her hotel room was open, and in the room itself there was a “smell of cheap perfume,” the source told journalists. According to the publication, after returning home to the United States, Arno went to the hospital and the authorities. As a result, the FBI launched an investigation. The head of the Free Russia Foundation declined to discuss the consequences, but did not deny that the incident took place.
Prior to her visit to Prague, Arno attended a meeting organized by Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Berlin on April 29-30 this year. Agency sources claim that the Russian journalist who was there also encountered symptoms of poisoning and went to the Charité clinic, where Alexei Navalny was treated. The journalist herself suggested that the symptoms could have appeared before the conference.
The Agency also drew attention to the incident that occurred with Hristo Grozev. Last summer, he came to Montenegro for a journalistic conference on Russia. During the journalist's absence from the hotel, his room was opened. According to Grozev, the phone was taken from there.