Lawmaker Anton Polyakov, who was found dead in a Kyiv taxi on Oct. 8, had alcohol and methadone in his blood, Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko told TV channel Ukraine 24 on Oct. 10.
Shevchenko’s announcement confirmed an earlier statement by Halyna Yanchenko, a lawmaker from the ruling Servant of the People faction on Oct. 9.
“There are two versions: either there was a criminal nature of death, or not. Either he himself used a drug that may have caused his death, or he was poisoned. There can be no other possibility,” Shevchenko told Ukraine 24.
An initial autopsy on Polyakov revealed that he died of acute coronary heart disease.
Shevchenko said that while the discovery of drugs in Polyakov’s body complicates the investigation, no conclusions have been reached so far.
“The investigation is ongoing, suspicion notices have not yet been presented to anyone. From the new data, the only thing that can be said is that forensic experts told the investigation that in the body of the deceased, in addition to a small dose of alcohol, there is such a substance as methadone,” said Shevchenko,
“But what kind of methadone it was, when it got into the body relative to the time of death and how it was able to directly affect the death of the victim will still be determined after in-depth analysis.”
Polyakov was a well-known lawmaker. During the 2019 parliament elections, he was elected in his native Chernihiv single-member constituency representing President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
Soon, however, Polyakov was excluded from the 243-member faction for going against the party line. He was accused of not supporting legislation proposed by the party. In turn, Polyakov accused the Servant of the People faction of corruption.
The lawmaker then joined the 22-member For the Future group in parliament connected to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. It’s led by Ihor Palytsa, former business partner of Kolomoisky, and was heavily promoted on the oligarch’s TV channels.
Polyakov took an active part in stalling the adoption of a bank law set to deprive bank owners of returning their former banks nationalized by the state, which Kolomoisky also opposed.
