The wife of Ukraine’s spy chief, Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, is being treated in hospital for suspected poisoning with heavy metals, a Ukrainian intelligence source has confirmed to the BBC.

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, said Mrs Budanova had been taken to hospital after feeling unwell for a “prolonged period of time”.

Citing its own sources in Ukrainian intelligence, Babel said she was now completing a course of treatment and would be monitored by doctors.

In September, Lt Gen Budanov, 37, told the War Zone website that he and his wife had been staying in his office “since the February invasion” in 2022 for safety reasons.

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

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