The head of the Wagner mercenaries offered to help Ukraine by giving up Russian troop locations if Kiev withdrew its troops from Bakhmut, leaked Pentagon documents suggest.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said in January that he had told the intelligence agency the positions of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers, the That reported the Washington Post, citing the leaked ‘Jack the Dripper’ papers. Ukraine rejected the offer out of distrust of Prigozhin.
Prigozhin has repeatedly threatened to withdraw Wagner from Bakhmut unless Russia’s regular forces send more ammunition. Last week he said his troops received only 10 percent of the shells they needed.
The leaked documents also revealed that in January Volodymyr Zelensky had made plans to “carry out attacks in Russia” while moving ground troops into enemy territory to “occupy unspecified Russian border towns.”
Prigozhin has repeatedly threatened to withdraw Wagner from Bakhmut unless Russian forces send ammunition. He said his troops received only 10% of the shells they needed
And during a February meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yuliya Svrydenko, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine “blow up” the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline that supplies oil to Hungary, the Post reported.
Zelensky stressed that…Ukraine should just blow up the pipeline and probably destroy Hungarian [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban’s industry, which is heavily based on Russian oil,” the document said.
In an interview with the Post, Zelensky dismissed claims as “fantasies” but defended his right to use unconventional tactics in defense of his country.
“Ukraine has every right to protect itself, and so do we. Ukraine has not occupied anyone, but vice versa,” Zelensky said. “If so many people have died and there have been mass graves and our people have been tortured, I am sure we must use all the tricks.”
Since last week, the boss of the Wagner group, Prigozhin, has repeatedly threatened to withdraw his soldiers from Bakhmut unless Russia’s regular forces send more ammunition.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner’s private mercenary army, rages over recent losses of Russian soldiers in Bakhmut
The head of the mercenaries belongs to the Russian military leadership as reports continue to emerge of Russian troops leaving their front lines
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce fighting is taking place against Russian troops, in Donetsk region, May 3, 2023
Wagner’s soldiers spearheaded a bloody Russian offensive to take the city of Bakhmut.
Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the Bakhmut area, where they are at the forefront of the Russian offensive, unless they receive much-needed ammunition.
He said in an audio message Tuesday that he and his men would be considered traitors if they left the area.
The Post reported that Prigozhin’s offer came about through his contacts with Ukrainian intelligence.
The leaked document did not clarify which Russian troop positions Prigozhin had offered to disclose.
But Kiev rejected it because officials do not trust Prigozhin and thought his proposals could be disingenuous, the Post reported.
The report, which is based on classified US documents leaked to the group chat platform Discord, does not clarify which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to make public.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the offer.
Last week, video footage captured the moment fleeing Russian troops were blown up with their own weapons as they tried to escape Ukraine’s front line.
The giant explosion is believed to take out all but three of Putin’s men in the unknown location
Smoke rises after an explosion that fires a missile at the escaping troops that appear to incapacitate all but three of them
The battlefield video apparently films the attack by Ukrainians using one of the deadly weapons left behind by Putin’s deserting soldiers.
A smoke trail can be seen as the missile is fired at the escaping troops, followed by a giant explosion that appears to incapacitate all but three of Putin’s men.
While the location of the attack is unknown, it is believed that the Russian forces were hit by one of their own Kornet man-portable anti-tank guided missiles that had been left behind and subsequently seized and deployed by Kiev’s forces.
It comes as reports continue to surface of Russians giving up hard-won ground and fleeing their positions in the hotly contested bloody battlefield of Bakhmut.
Pro-Kremlin Ukrainian blogger and politician Anatoly Shariy posted the footage to his more than one million Telegram subscribers, stating, “This is what happens when the Russian army runs away and leaves Kornets behind.”
Since last week, Prigozhin has repeatedly threatened to withdraw Wagner from Bakhmut unless Russia’s regular forces send more ammunition. In his final remarks on Wednesday, he said his troops received only 10% of the shells they needed.
In addition to repeated clashes with the Russian Defense Ministry, Prigozhin has also expressed concern over a long-promised Ukrainian counter-offensive to recapture some of the territory Russia occupied after the 2022 invasion.