Double game from Wagner’s boss: Prigozhin made a treacherous offer to Ukraine

This revelation could give Yevgeny Prigozhin some headaches. At the end of January, the talkative leader of the Wagner mercenary group reportedly made an extraordinary offer to Ukrainian military intelligence: if Kiev withdraws its soldiers from the disputed town of Bakhmut, he will provide information about the position of the Russian army. The Ukrainian armed forces could then have used this information to attack the enemy.

This almost unbelievable proposal is said to be in the US secret cables that a Massachusetts national guard illegally published on the Internet platform Discord until a few weeks ago. Some of these documents are based on wiretapped conversations in Ukrainian leaders. The Washington Post on Sunday published excerpts from documents alleged to provide information about regular contacts between Prigozhin and the Ukrainian armed forces.

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Ready to betray Russia

Accordingly, the Wagner boss complained about the high losses in Bachmut and the supply problems faced by his mercenary force. This is now generally known, also because Prigozhin regularly speaks out in increasingly confused video messages and statements on the Telegram network. He recently claimed that Russian forces were responsible for downing four Russian military jets over the weekend.

However, what is new is that at the beginning of the year he was ready to betray Russia to save his mercenaries in the bitter battle of Bakhmut. In an interview with the «Post», an official of the Ukrainian secret service confirmed repeated contacts with Prigozhin. The place of these talks is said to have been an African country; Wagner is present in several states on the African continent.

But in the end Kiev rejected the mercenary chief’s offer because the Ukrainians didn’t trust him and weren’t sure if his suggestion was sincere. Washington reportedly shared these doubts. The documents do not show whether Ukraine only accepted the offer of talks to further undermine Prigozhin’s already weakened position in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power apparatus.

Selenski declined to provide any information

At the beginning of the month, the “Post” spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky about his contacts with the Wagner boss, when several representatives of the newspaper interviewed the Ukrainian president. However, Zelensky declined to provide any information or confirm the authenticity of the US intelligence documents. In his response, which was not published until Sunday, Selenski appeared annoyed. “Please stop playing games with me,” he told Post journalists. “I am the president of a country at war,” and releasing classified information “is not good for our people.”

Prigozhin, in turn, appeared to confirm on Telegram this weekend that he was in direct contact with the leadership in Kiev. “We have nothing to hide,” he wrote. And: he and the head of Ukrainian military intelligence “are still in Africa”.