Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and former head of the country's Main Intelligence Directorate, reported that he regularly spoke with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of PMC 'Wagner'. He reported these conversations in an interview with The New York Times.
According to Budanov, his communication with Prigozhin ended shortly before the PMC 'Wagner' mutiny in 2023. He did not provide other details of these contacts.
Personal negotiations between Budanov and Prigozhin were not previously known, reports 'Agentstvo'.
In May 2023, The Washington Post, citing a leaked US intelligence report, wrote that Prigozhin contacted Ukraine's HUR (Main Intelligence Directorate) and offered to disclose Russian military positions in exchange for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Bakhmut.
The documents also indicated that Prigozhin spoke on the phone with HUR employees and met with Ukrainian intelligence officers in one of the African countries. Two Ukrainian officials then confirmed to The Washington Post that Prigozhin spoke several times with HUR representatives. However, the newspaper did not report on personal conversations between Prigozhin and Budanov.
Prigozhin himself, after the leak of US intelligence documents, called this information speculation and ironically said: "Of course, I can confirm this information. We have nothing at all to hide from foreign intelligence services. Budanov and I are still in Africa."
Budanov, after the PMC 'Wagner' mutiny, refused to comment on rumors about his contacts with Prigozhin.
Budanov headed the Office of the President of Ukraine on January 2, 2026. After his appointment, he became one of Kyiv's key negotiators for the war settlement. Prior to this, Budanov was already involved in the peace process: back in November 2025, Zelensky included him in the Ukrainian delegation for negotiations with the USA, other partners, and Russia. In addition, Budanov maintained contacts with the head of Russia's GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), Igor Kostyukov, for several years — they first held talks in 2022 on Black Sea navigation, and later interacted, in particular, on prisoner exchanges.
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