# I think Putin's long tables are about assassination attempts, not COVID-19
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 30, 2022, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969 "2022-03-30T11:17:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/1 "2022-03-30T11:17:48Z")
We’ve all seen the weird long tables that Vladimir Putin uses for meetings with foreign heads of state and with his own staff. The press generally say that these are part of Putin’s elaborate isolation measures against COVID.
But some in Putin’s government have become, by his own initiative, pretty good at assassinations using nerve agents such as Novitchok, or using radioactive tea. I think he’s worried about getting assassinated by his own experts, and that the distancing is mostly about this. I would not be surprised if he had somebody tasting his food a few hours before each meal and a Geiger counter in his dining room.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/2 "2022-03-30T12:47:26Z")
Wasn’t there a James Bond movie where the evil guy tried to assassinate Bond (who was sitting at the other end of a long table) with a concealed gun attached to the woodwork?
I imagine Putin’s food tasters are getting a real workout these days. We’ll know the paranoia is ramping up if he starts wearing gloves everywhere to avoid contaminated doorknobs (or has lackeys opening all doors for him).
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/3 "2022-03-30T15:17:44Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> I imagine Putin’s food tasters are getting a real workout these days. We’ll know the paranoia is ramping up if he starts wearing gloves everywhere to avoid contaminated doorknobs (or has lackeys opening all doors for him).
The problem with food tasters is if one decides to kill their principal, one could opt for suicide by dosing the food with something fully knowing that it would cause something lovely like cascading organ failure, understanding that you are setting yourself up for the exact same death. That is why a suicide killer is so very dangerous, many actions become possible when one knows one will die as a result of the attack.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/4 "2022-03-30T21:17:13Z")
There are people who think the long table to is to keep him from getting Covid?
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### Author:  [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/5 "2022-03-30T22:05:36Z")
[According to Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-kept-macron-distance-snubbing-covid-demands-sources-2022-02-10/), when Macron visited Russia recently, he was required to take a Russian COVID test or remain at a distance from Putin at all times. Surrendering his DNA to the Russians was deemed a security risk, hence the famous photo at the long table.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/6 "2022-03-30T22:38:34Z")
But I didn’t ask if it had been claimed, I asked if anyone believed.
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### Author:  [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/7 "2022-03-30T23:03:24Z")
One thing that I’ve been thinking about the last few weeks is that anyone meeting Putin has probably been rigorously searched and metal-detected etc. So any direct attempt to take out Putin would probably require a vicious physical attack, without weapons. As such, those huge distances between Putin and potential plotters would probably make such physical attacks very difficult and impractical.
Trying to picture a few coup essayers, dressed in their suits, engaged in a vicious, to-the-death, physical dog fight in one of those absurdly ornate rooms in the Kremlin, is a really surreal thing.
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2022, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/8 "2022-03-31T00:33:26Z")
I don’t get it. What are they going to do, clone him? Plus, everyone knows that taking a Covid test alters one’s DNA. \*ducks.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/9 "2022-03-31T00:48:56Z")
Weapons like polonium aren’t used because they can be snuck past security; they’re used to make it perfectly clear to everyone watching exactly who was responsible for the attack. With an attack on the leader of Russia, that wouldn’t be necessary, and you could fall back on weapons that are genuinely sneaky. Most of which would work just fine from a table’s length away.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2022, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/10 "2022-03-31T00:49:59Z")
AFAIK only cyanide kills within minutes; any other poison take hours to kill you so food tasters are pretty much useless. Plus it doesn’t tell you who poisoned the food… the cook, the server, the meat supplier, someone else in the middle? I don’t know if I’ve read any accounts of tasters detecting poisoned food in any modern times.
As mentioned in numerous places Putin’s biggest threats are his own smart people; those who could take over. These aren’t the types to try a “surprise” flying leap across the table with a knife in their mouths like Tarzan. If Putin has 6 men accompany him to take a leak I’m pretty sure anyone in one of those rooms would be killed if they went for him by charging across the table.
He’s just weird and insecure; probably simply trying to project an aura of “look at me I’m untouchable” with the silly furniture and grand entrances through huge fancy doors.
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### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2022, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/11 "2022-03-31T01:48:59Z")
I always assumed it was Putin’s attempt to avoid a bomb in a briefcase, like happened to Hitler.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2022, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/12 "2022-03-31T02:04:50Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Wasn’t there a James Bond movie where the evil guy tried to assassinate Bond (who was sitting at the other end of a long table) with a concealed gun attached to the woodwork?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRYVsC8JY1A)
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> There are people who think the long table to is to keep him from getting Covid?
Yeah, this is mostly from his love of _Game of Thrones_ cosplay:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDFMXC8DoBk)
Unfortunately for Putin, HBO is blocked in Russia and none of his advisors are clever enough to install NordVPN.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Weapons like polonium aren’t used because they can be snuck past security; they’re used to make it perfectly clear to everyone watching exactly who was responsible for the attack.
Putin is a masterful troll who never passes on the opportunity to let everyone know what he is most certainly denying responsibility for however much it might please him to have happened.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/13 "2022-04-06T12:50:07Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#):
>
> AFAIK only cyanide kills within minutes;
Not true.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/14 "2022-04-06T20:46:10Z")
What other poisons have been documented used in these types of assassination’s? Of course there are substances around that are deadly fast but not the kind you can discreetly carry around on you and sprinkle onto someone’s food.
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### Author:  [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2022, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/15 "2022-04-07T12:03:02Z")
Moving the goal posts, I see. Documented poisons used in assassinations is like a drop in a sea of toxic substances known to man.
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### Author:  [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2022, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-putins-long-tables-are-about-assassination-attempts-not-covid-19/961969/16 "2022-04-09T17:00:00Z")
> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> Moving the goal posts, I see.
Not at all. For recollection here is my full quote:
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#):
>
> AFAIK only cyanide kills within minutes; any other poison take hours to kill you so food tasters are pretty much useless. Plus it doesn’t tell you who poisoned the food… the cook, the server, the meat supplier, someone else in the middle? I don’t know if I’ve read any accounts of tasters detecting poisoned food in any modern times.
Which plainly indicates that I’m referring to poisons used in inside assassination attempts, how many of them work within just a few minutes, and why food tasters are of little no no use because of that.
You’ve cherry-picked 5 words of my paragraph to give a meaningless 2-word rebuttal to. And when you’re given a chance to clarify what you mean you tuck your tail between your legs and run away barking “moving the goal posts”. I won’t be responding any further to such nonsense.