Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of PMC Wagner, met the Ukrainian intelligence in late January 2023 and offered them to reveal location data of Russian troops in exchange for Ukrainian withdrawal from Bakhmut, The Washington Post cites the US Discord intel leak.
“Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them,” WP says.
The leaked document does not make clear which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to disclose. Prigozhin is still an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who “might well regard Prigozhin’s offer to trade the lives of Wagner fighters for Russian soldiers as a treasonous betrayal”, WP says.
Two Ukrainian officials confirmed that Prigozhin had spoken to the Ukrainian intelligence directorate, known as HUR, several times. One official said that Prigozhin extended the offer regarding Bakhmut more than once, but that Kyiv rejected it because officials don’t trust Prigozhin and thought his proposals could have been disingenuous.
Prigozhin accused Russia’s Defence Ministry of putting PMC Wagner into a “shell hunger” earlier. Later on, he threatened Defence Minister Shoigu that Wagner would abandon its positions in Bakhmut if the mercenary group did not receive the ammo.
According to one document, Prigozhin told a Ukrainian intelligence officer that the Russian military was struggling with ammunition supplies. He advised Ukrainian forces to push forward with an assault on the border of Crimea, WP reports.
Prigohzin has carried on a secret relationship with Ukrainian intelligence that, in addition to phone calls, includes in-person meetings with HUR officers in an unspecified country in Africa, one document states. Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, “expected the Russians to use details of Prigozhin’s secret talks with the HUR and his meetings with their officers in Africa to make him appear to be a Ukrainian agent.”
Yesterday, The Washington Post removed a part of the text from an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which journalists questioned him about contacts between the HUR and Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In the edited out portion, it was said that Budanov informed Zelensky on 13 February about Russia’s plans to destabilise the situation in Moldova with the help of two former Wagner mercenaries. It is alleged that Budanov called such a scheme an attempt to expose Prigozhin, because “we [the HUR] are having talks with him.”
After that, Zelensky instructed Budanov to inform the President of Moldova about the impending provocation. The Ukrainian intelligence also told Prigozhin that he would be declared a traitor working for Ukraine.
