00:00In 2004, a man ran for president of Ukraine while something was eating him alive.
00:05His name was Viktor Yushchenko, and the poison inside him was TCDD-Dioxin, one of the most
00:11toxic chemicals ever created by humans.
00:14It started at a private dinner with Ukrainian state security officials in September.
00:19Within days, Yushchenko was in agony.
00:21His face began to swell, then blister, then collapse into something almost unrecognizable.
00:28Doctors were baffled.
00:29His organs were failing, but he kept campaigning.
00:33Week after week, crowds watched his face transform in real time.
00:38The man they'd seen on posters was disappearing.
00:41Something was replacing him.
00:42He still won the election.
00:44Forensic investigators later confirmed what had happened.
00:47Operatives connected to Ukrainian and Russian intelligence had poisoned him at that dinner.
00:52The dioxin levels in his blood were over 1,000 times the lethal threshold.
00:57He survived because his body simply refused to stop.
01:00The attempt to kill Viktor Yushchenko happened in public, written across his face, for the
01:06entire world to see.
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