Ukraine spy chief's wife poisoned, local media report

The wife of Ukraine's spy chief, Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, has been poisoned with "heavy metals", local media report citing sources.

Marianna Budanova was taken to hospital after feeling unwell for a "prolonged period of time", news website Babel said, quoting intelligence officials.

Two other Ukrainian media outlets later published similar information, relying on their own sources.

Ukraine's military intelligence has not publicly commented on the reports.

The reports did not say whether or not Russia was thought to be behind the alleged attack.

Ukraine's Ukrainska Pravda news website said several other intelligence officials had also been poisoned. However, there were no suggestions that Gen Budanov may also have been targeted.

The general, who leads the Main Directorate of Intelligence (DIU) of Ukraine's defence ministry, has played a key role in planning and sometimes executing major military operations against Russian forces, following Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

News website Babel, which on Tuesday was the first to report the alleged poisoning, quoted one of its sources in Ukrainian intelligence as saying that Mrs Budanova was now completing a course of treatment and would be monitored by doctors.

The unnamed official added that the substances Mrs Budanova had been poisoned with were "not used in any way in everyday life or military operations". The official provided no further details.

The Ukrainska Pravda news website later quoted its own sources as saying that Mrs Budanova's poisoning had been confirmed after tests.

The website added that she had most likely been given poisoned food, but was now "feeling better" after completing an initial course of treatment.

Separately, Ukraine's Unian news agency quoted its source as saying that Mrs Budanova was being treated in a hospital in Ukraine, not abroad.

Mrs Budanova - born in 1993 in Kyiv - has a master's degree in psychology. She later became involved in politics, working as an adviser to Kyiv's mayor.

In 2022, she told Elle magazine that she also worked as a volunteer in Kyiv's military hospital in 2015-17.

In September, Lt Gen Budanov, aged 37, told the War Zone website that he and his wife had been staying in his office "since the February invasion" for safety reasons.

"She's [Marianna] actually a professor at our national police academy. She's teaching legal psychology. It's not a problem for her as it might have been for someone else."

Senior DIU official Andriy Yusov told Ukrainska Pravda earlier this year that there had been more than 10 assassination attempts against Gen Budanov.