Studies of the bodies of six dead, found between 10 and 17 September in the Wołosowski region, showed a high or lethal level of methanol – announced the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, responsible for the most important proceedings in the country.
On Friday, the committee announced 19 deaths in the Słancewski region, another part of the Leningrad region.
Three suspects in the case were detained and are waiting for the trial.
Mass poisoning in Russia
Fatal accidents caused by cheap, falsified alcohol are not rare in Russia – a country that has been struggling with a high level of alcoholism for years, although this number has fallen compared to the peak achieved in the 1990s. Although the law punishing methanol has been sharpened, vodka is still too expensive for millions of Russians, especially in rural areas of life – he explained – AFP.
In recent years, several cases of mass poisoning of unknown origin have been reported in Russia. Usually, the reason was to add methyl alcohol to drinks. The most tragic was the poisoning in the Samarski District in June 2023, when 50 people lost their lives, as well as in the autumn of 2016 in the Irkutsk region. There, after drinking contaminated alcohol, 76 people died.
