Russian Special Services Spill Out: SVR General Reveals Details of Budanova's Poisoning

A Russian trail has emerged.

The Ukrainian side believes that Russian special services were involved in the poisoning of the wife of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, Marianna Budanova.

The involvement of Russian special services in the crime is proved by the fact that the tests showed the presence of two heavy metals in Budanova's body, said Lieutenant-General and former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine Valeriy Kondratyuk on the air of the programme Argument.

According to him, the Russian hand in the crime is also evidenced by the fact that several high-ranking employees of the Defence Ministry's GUR also showed symptoms of poisoning.

"When we received the data, of course it would be premature to immediately say that Russian special services were involved, but the fact that the analysis found two heavy metals - arsenic and mercury - indicates that this is not an accidental poisoning. Here, and apart from Kirill Budanov's wife, several high-ranking employees of the Ukrainian military intelligence have the same symptoms (of poisoning)," he said.

Kondratyuk added that he was referring to the heads of "those units responsible for the GUR operations carried out on Russian territory - and for the creation of the resistance movement and other many operations". "And in connection with this, there are not unreasonable conclusions that this particular poisoning is not accidental and that Russian special services are really behind it...," the lieutenant-general stressed.

On 28 November, journalists learned that Marianna Budanova had survived the poisoning and was being treated in one of the medical institutions in Ukraine. The poisoning of several Ukrainian military intelligence officers was also revealed.

Later, the GUR of the Ministry of Defence confirmed the veracity of the information about the poisoning of Budanova and her colleagues. The Ministry also stated that it was independently investigating the poisoning.