One of the documents of the Pentagon, which got into the network in the course of a large-scale leak, claims that the head of the PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin offered to transfer information about the positions of the Russian military to Ukrainian intelligence in exchange for the withdrawal of the Armed Forces from Bakhmut. The Washington Post writes about it.
The document claims that Prigozhin passed on his proposal in January through contacts in Ukrainian military intelligence. Two Ukrainian sources confirmed to journalists that the Russian was in contact with the intelligence service. One of them claims that Kyiv rejected the proposal because it does not trust the Wagnerites.
Another document, allegedly compiled on the basis of US intelligence, states that Prigozhin allegedly personally met with Ukrainian military intelligence officers in Africa, and that at one of the meetings he talked about the lack of ammunition in the Russian army and recommended that the Armed Forces start an offensive on Crimea.
Prigozhin sarcastically commented on this fragment in his telegram: "We have nothing at all to hide from foreign special services, we are still in Africa with [the head of Ukrainian military intelligence Kyril] Budanov," he said in a voice message, later clarifying that he had not been to Africa . at least since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyі, did not confirm his contacts with Prigozhyn to the newspaper. The press secretary of the Kremlin, Dmytro Peskov, called the publication "like a duck."
Russia and Ukraine have been fighting for Bakhmut since August 2022, and since the middle of the month, the offensive in the city has been conducted mainly by the forces of the "Wagner" PMC. Military analysts note the relatively high combat capability of mercenaries compared to regular Russian troops, but they never managed to capture the city.
