Wagner, the owner of a Russian paramilitary group that was at the forefront of the fight for Bagmut, reportedly offered to give Ukraine information about Russian troops in exchange for Ukrainian forces to leave the city in the east of the country.
Informed by The Washington Post, Citing classified US documents posted on the Discord social network by Jack Teixeira. According to the newspaper, Yevgueni Prigojin has been in constant contact with the Ukrainian secret services and has made this proposal more than once.
However, he himself came to deny that this had happened. “Ridiculous,” Prigozhin said in an audio message released by his press service on Telegram.
According to MailA classified document reveals that a Russian businessman talked about giving information to Ukraine in late January, as the Pakmuth battle raged for months and turned into a military shredding machine. From both sides. By that time, according to documents cited by the newspaper, Prigozhin had already had several phone calls and meetings with officials of Ukraine’s secret services, including in an African country.
In response, Prigozhin says that he has not been to Africa “since the beginning” of the invasion of Ukraine and ironically replied: “It seems that I am fighting for Russia, but at the same time Zelensky is following my instructions. So, the left hand is fighting the right hand,” AFP quoted.
A Ukrainian source assured The Washington Post Prigozhin’s proposal was not considered due to lack of confidence in Russian mercenaries. Incidentally, according to the newspaper, even secret documents show that Ukrainian spies suspect the Kremlin of their contacts with Prigozhin. [Prigojin] Look like a Ukrainian agent” and discredited him in the eyes of Russian public opinion.
In Moscow, a presidential spokesman said the news “seems like a rumour”. Prigozhin, on the other hand, left the idea that it was the Russian elite who spread these allegations up in the air.
The commander of Group Wagner has made a series of public criticisms of the Russian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense, accusing him of mismanaging military operations and not providing his fighters with enough ammunition to capture Bagmut at once. The classified documents also contain information about how repairs were obtained on these bodies in the context of a power struggle between Prigogine and Minister Sergii Shoigu.
Nationalists form the club
Igor Kirkin (or Strelkov), a repeated critic of the way the “special military operation” is being carried out in Ukraine, is a former Russian soldier convicted of involvement in the first phase of the Donbass war in 2014. Flight MH17 was shot down with 298 people on board.
Kirkin is one of the promoters of the newly formed “club of angry patriots”, which includes nationalist activists Pavel Gubarev and Vladimir Kucherenko, who have expressed disbelief and anger at actions in the Ukrainian region. According to the North American Institute for the Study of War, the group wants to “expand its presence and influence in the public discourse” and “create regional representatives and invite experienced politicians, opinion leaders and heads of Russian organizations to participate”.
On Friday, the club held a press conference in which it positioned itself as a new political force for the post-Putin war. “We are on the verge of very radical internal political changes of a catastrophic nature,” Kirkin told Reuters. “All healthy forces must form organizations to participate in the inevitable political battle – which has already begun.”
The former soldier made it clear that his frequent and harsh criticism of the Russian political elite was not aimed at removing Vladimir Putin from power. “No matter how much I criticize Putin, Putin is the only legitimate person in the Russian Federation,” Kirkin said, adding that his downfall would “signal the downfall of Russia.”
Kirkin created the system to avoid this scenario, which he says is inevitable if Russia loses the war. “There can be no compromise: the war ends with the Russian flag at Kiev or with Russian defeat [trará] Its territorial occupation, its disarmament and its loss of sovereignty”, he said.