SIX months after the Orange Revolution that made him a national hero and a symbol of personal courage, Ukraine’s first freely elected President says that his security forces have found the laboratory that made the poison used in an attempt on his life last year — and it is in Ukraine, not Russia.

The disclosure by Viktor Yushchenko will ease Ukraine’s troubled relations with the Kremlin even as the country’s love affair with Europe begins to sour after the implosion of the EU constitution.

Mr Yushchenko was badly disfigured by a near-lethal dose of dioxin, thought to have been served to him in September at a secret dinner with the man who was head of Ukraine’s secret police.

Senior members of his Government still refuse to rule out the possibility of Russian involvement and the President gave a warning that an investigation would bring those responsible to justice. “I’m sure that even though some people are running from the investigation, we will get them,” he said. “I am not afraid of anything or anybody.”

Holding court in the palatial former Communist Party headquarters from which he is said to be anxious to move, Mr Yushchenko said: “The chemical lab has been uncovered.”

Asked if it was in Ukraine, he nodded, declining to be more specific but adding that there were the “remains of poison in that lab that could have been used in violation of national and international laws”.

Earlier he had made light of his appearance. “I am sure that sitting before you is a strong and beautiful man,” he sighed, in his only attempt at humour.

He is certainly strong, but his face remains shockingly scarred. His ears are calloused and swollen and his cheeks, greyish under heavy make-up, look disembodied next to his healthy hand when he raises it for emphasis.

“I’m proud that I was able to come through this ordeal and I know that 99 per cent of people would not have come through it. Nobody has survived such a poisoning in Ukraine,” he said.

The investigation so far bears this out. Mr Yushchenko said that the bodies of an unconfirmed number of victims of the same highly concentrated dioxin, an industrial defoliant, are being studied to establish exactly how it attacks human tissue.

He said that there were only two other known survivors of exposure to the poison in Europe. One is thought to be an Austrian textiles researcher.

The President’s exclusion of Russia as a possible source of the poison will be seen as conciliatory towards President Putin, who lobbied vigorously for Mr Yushchenko’s rival in the elections that triggered the January revolution. Since then relations between the countries have been tense, but the crisis that many forecast has not materialised.

Russia’s share of Ukrainian exports has risen sharply and Mr Yushchenko has surprised some of his European admirers by signing up to new free trade initiatives with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the ossified dictatorship on his northern border.

He has also held three high-profile summits with Mr Putin, with two more planned for the next two months, and progress is expected on fronts that remained deadlocked under his predecessor. Among them are Russia’s stranglehold on gas and oil supplies to Ukraine and the disputed status of Russia’s Black Sea fleet at Sebastopol. The contrast with “old” Europe’s indifference towards Ukraine since May could hardly be starker.

With EU enlargement firmly on hold and Ukraine behind Turkey and much of the Balkans in the queue to begin accession talks, the goal of full membership promised to Kiev’s crowds last winter now looks remote.

Asked if there was a risk that a yearning for Europe would turn to a sense of betrayal, Mr Yushchenko talked pointedly about Europe’s people rather than its leaders. “The citizens of no European country object to Ukraine joining the EU,” he insisted, citing polls showing 65 per cent support for the idea among Germans and an only slightly lower number in France. “We consider that Ukraine is an inseparable part of Europe,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has agreed to a three-year “action plan” with the EU, but Western diplomats are making no promises and counselling patience.

Many Ukrainians feel that they have been patient long enough. “The window of opportunity is closing!” the front page of a leading national daily declared recently.

There is no question that Mr Yushchenko wants to keep that window open. His challenge is to enact the reforms required to start accession talks fast enough to satisfy his core supporters without alienating Russia or the oligarchs on whom much of Ukraine’s economy still depends.

TOXIC WASTE

1815 Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on St Helens. A study found abnormal traces of arsenic in his hair, suggesting that he had been given non-lethal doses to hasten his death

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