The head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, offered Ukraine information on the location of the Russian troops in order to attack them in exchange for the Ukrainians withdrawing their soldiers from the surroundings of the city of Bakhmut, according to leaked documents from US intelligence services. .
As reported by the US newspaper The Washington Post, in late January, with Wagner's mercenaries dying by the thousands in besieged Bakhmut, Prigozhin told Ukrainian commanders that if they withdrew their soldiers from the city, he would give them information on the positions of Russian troops, which Ukraine could use to attack them. The proposal was reportedly passed on to his contacts in Ukraine's military intelligence, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war.
The Kremlin has denied this information on Monday, calling it a "hoax". "Unfortunately, in recent years, even respected publications often do not disdain this practice," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told his daily telephone press briefing.
In an audio message posted by his press service on Telegram, Yevgeny Prigozhin has similarly called the accusations "nonsense" and has suggested that members of the business and political elite are orchestrating an attack against him. Prigozhin has also denied meeting Kirilo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, in an unidentified African country, saying he had not been to the continent since the start of the Ukraine conflict.
The leaked documents do not clarify which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to reveal. According to The Washington Post, citing a Ukrainian official, there had already been other offers of this type that, as on previous occasions, were rejected by Ukraine for fear that they were false and due to the lack of confidence generated by the head of the Wagner group.
What is clear is Prigozhin's frustration with the fighting in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war and where Russian forces have suffered heavy casualties. Wagner's boss has expressed his outrage on several occasions, accusing the Russian Defense Ministry of not giving its soldiers enough ammunition and resources to fight under good conditions.
Last Friday, he denounced in a video issued by his press service that the Ukrainian troops approached up to 500 meters to the northwest of Bakhmut due to the flight of the Russian regular troops that protected that flank.
Prigozhin, who had vowed to take control of the city by May 9, in time for Russia's Victory Day celebrations, has recently publicly threatened to withdraw his forces from the fighting.
