Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images
- Ukrainian partisans said they killed 24 Russian soldiers in Crimea by poisoning their vodka.
- Another 11 soldiers needed hospital care, the Crimean Combat Seagulls group said on Telegram.
- Russia and Ukraine have both suffered from cases of poisoning in recent months.
Ukrainian partisans claimed to have killed 24 Russian soldiers in Crimea by poisoning their vodka with arsenic and strychnine, according to a Telegram post published on Saturday.
The Ukrainian partisan group Crimean Combat Seagulls said "nice girls" greeted the soldiers with "goodies" to eat, according to a translation provided by the Kyiv Post.
"The arsenic and strychnine tasted unforgettable," they said, adding that 24 Russian soldiers died and 11 more were sent to the hospital, per the Kyiv Post translation.
Telegram channel Kremlin Snuffbox quoted unnamed sources as saying that "two nice girls" tricked the unit in Simferopol, Crimea, into drinking vodka with huge doses of arsenic and strychnine in the bottles, per the Kyiv Post translation.
"The guys took vodka and food, drank with their colleagues, and ate. And many were poisoned," the unnamed sources said.
It is unclear when the alleged poisoning happened.
Business Insider could not independently verify the reports.
This is not the first time Ukrainian partisans have claimed similar attacks on Russian troops in occupied territories.
In October, Ukrainian resistance fighters said they had killed 26 Russian soldiers in occupied Mariupol by "feeding" them poison, the Kyiv Post reported at the time.
Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol, said in a Telegram post in August that Ukrainian resistance forces poisoned 17 Russian military officers there as they were celebrating Navy Day in the southern Ukrainian port, killing two.
The other 15 were taken to the hospital in serious condition, he said.
Apti Alaudinov, a Russian commander of the Akhmat special forces, was also poisoned after handling a letter sent to him in February, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said in a Telegram post at the time.
Meanwhile, Marianna Budanova, the wife of Ukraine's defense intelligence agency chief, Kyrylo Budanov, was diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning in November, a spokesperson for the agency told the Associated Press last month.
While officials did not offer more details on the case, the fact that the couple lives together may indicate the poison was intended for Budanov, AP reported.