The Head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency SVR, Sergey Naryshkin has admitted that he spoke with CIA Director, William Burns in the days after Wagner’s mercenary mutiny last month.
The hour-long conversation at the end of June with CIA Director, William Burns focused mostly on Ukraine, Naryshkin told Russian State news agency, TASS on Wednesday.
Russia has been waging a full-scale war in Ukraine since February 2022.
The U.S. has been the leading supporter of Ukraine throughout the war, supplying the country with intelligence as well as billions of dollars’ worth of weapons.
“We have considered and discussed what to do with Ukraine,” he said. Adding that conditions for negotiations with Kiev are not yet in place.
“But of course, negotiations will be possible sooner or later because every conflict, even an armed one, ends with negotiations.
“However, the conditions for this are not yet ripe”, he said.
Naryshkin said during the conversation with Burns, he also answered questions about the “events” on June 24, described the June 23-24 mutiny as a “pretext” for Burns’ call.
“I think it was more of a pretext because the main part of the conversation was focused on discussing issues and events related to Ukraine”, he said.
On that day, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had his troops occupied the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and sent a military column marching toward Moscow.