Ukraine military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov’s wife poisoned

 

The wife of Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has been hospitalized after being poisoned with heavy metals that may have been slipped into her food, according to officials.

Marianna Budanova, the university professor wife of Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who leads Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), was finishing a course of medical treatment for the effects of the poisoning, according to the publication Babel.

“Yes, I can confirm the information, unfortunately, it is true,” GUR spokesman Andriy Yusov said, without clarifying when the poisoning happened.

The mystery substances believed to have sickened Budanova “are in no way used in daily activities or in military affairs,” a source within GUR told the outlet. “Their presence may indicate a deliberate attempt to poison a specific person.”

The poison likely had been mixed into Budanova’s food, reported the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, citing sources in the country’s security apparatus.

“She complained of feeling unwell, and that is why they ran some tests that revealed she had been poisoned,” sources were quoted as telling the publication.

Several other GUR operatives had also been poisoned, but Budanova became symptomatic first because she weighs significantly less than the others, reported Ukrainska Pravda.

Valeriy Kondratyuk, the former head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told the independent Russian news outlet Meduza that he spoke on Tuesday to Budanov, who confirmed his wife’s poisoning.

“Some of her organs had been affected,” Kondratyuk revealed. “At this point, the medical treatment has been concluded; her life is not in danger.”

The Ukrainian authorities are investigating Budanova’s poisoning as an attempted murder, according to RBC Ukraine.

Media reports did not make any suggestions of who was behind the alleged poisoning, or clarify when it occurred.

Kondratyuk floated the idea, without providing any evidence to back it up, that Russian security services may have orchestrated the attempt on Budanova’s life.

Budanov himself was not harmed and was said to be “in good health.” The 37-year-old military spymaster was said to have survived at least 10 attempts on his life since the start of the war with Russia, a GUR spokesperson said in June.

In an interview with Radio Freedom earlier this year, Budanov said that he and his wife have been living in his office and spending 24 hours a day together for security reasons.

“She’s actually a professor at our national police academy,” Budanov told The War Zone website in September. “She’s teaching legal psychology. It’s not a problem for her as it might have been for someone else.”

Budanov has been portrayed as the mastermind of numerous secret operations targeting President Vladimir Putin’s forces — and he has previously vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

In April, a Moscow court had “arrested” Budanov in absentia on terrorism charges.

Moscow has earlier blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of pro-war Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and pro-Kremlin journalist Darya Dugina, both of whom died in explosions on Russian soil. Kyiv denied involvement in those deaths.