Women Poisoned In Russia Fly Home to U.S.

MOSCOW — Two American women who were hospitalized in Moscow for suspected thallium poisoning flew home to America yesterday, as colleagues and relatives struggled to understand how the two were exposed to a potentially fatal chemical.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman identified the women as Marina Kovalevsky and her daughter, Yana, and said Russian officials were investigating how and when they could have come into contact with poison.

Moscow police declined to comment, but the Ekho Moskvy radio reported authorities were checking cafés and restaurants in the area of the hotel where the women stayed.

The hospital where the women were treated since falling ill February 24 said yesterday morning that they were in moderately serious condition and Moscow's top public health doctor, Nikolai Filatov, was quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency as saying that thallium poisoning had been confirmed.

Marina Kovalevsky, 49, and her daughter Yana, 26, are Soviet-born and emigrated to America in 1989. They have visited Russia repeatedly since then, relatives and colleagues said.

In West Hollywood, Calif., where Marina Kovalevsky opened an internal medicine practice six or seven years ago, relatives said she left for Moscow on February 14 to attend a friend's party.

A colleague, Dr. Arkady Stern, told the Associated Press that Marina Kovalevsky left Los Angeles "in a good state of health, in good spirits."