According to these documents, leaked by the Discord platform and cited this Monday (05.15.2023) by the Washington Post, it was at the end of January when Yevgeni Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner group, launched that offer to his contacts in the Intelligence Directorate. Ukrainian military, given the numerous casualties that his group of mercenaries was suffering in the besieged Ukrainian city.
According to this leak, it was not the first time that Prigozhin had “secret communications” with Ukrainian military intelligence during the course of the war.
The leaked documents do not clarify which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to reveal, according to the Post, citing a Ukrainian official, according to whom it was not the first such offer and, as on previous occasions, was rejected by Ukraine for fear of being false and for the lack of trust that Wagner’s boss generates.
Wagner and the Kremlin deny
As the newspaper points out, Prigozhin had promised to take control of the city of Bakhmut before May 9, when Russia celebrates Victory Day against the Nazis, but in recent days he has even threatened to withdraw his forces from the city .
According to one of the documents revealed by the Post, Prigozhin was aware of the drop in morale among Wagner’s forces and that even some fighters had resisted deploying to Bakhmut for fear of further casualties.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted by assuring that the report, which was also rejected by Prigozhin, appeared to be a hoax.
Prigozhin has denounced on several occasions the lack of arms and equipment of his group and last Friday he once again accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of lying in its war reports.
That day he denounced 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.
