Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov told New York Times journalist Andrew Kramer that he regularly contacted Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin — communications continued almost until the mercenaries' mutiny against the Kremlin in the summer of 2023. This is reported by UNN citing the publication.
The NYT does not provide direct quotes from Budanov about the content of these conversations and does not reveal details — only confirming the fact of a communication channel between the head of Ukrainian military intelligence and a person who died in a plane crash a few weeks after the failed rebellion.
Intelligence does not conduct negotiations — it gathers information
Contact with Prigozhin should be distinguished from diplomacy. Intelligence leaders historically maintain communication channels with adversarial figures precisely because these figures have internal conflicts with their own leadership — and Prigozhin, on the eve of the mutiny, was an ideal source of signals about cracks in the Kremlin hierarchy.
The second line of contacts looks different. Budanov confirmed direct communication with GRU chief Igor Kostyukov — it began in 2022 through Turkish mediation and concerned a specific technical task: opening shipping routes in the Black Sea for grain exports.
Negotiations will lead to something sooner or later. You cannot fight your whole life
— Kyrylo Budanov
What this means for the course of the war
The publication does not clarify whether contacts with Kostyukov continue to this day. But their very existence shows: even at the height of hostilities between two intelligence services, there exists a narrow, purely technical channel — without political content, without a ceasefire, only for resolving specific logistical bottlenecks such as a grain corridor.
Budanov does not expect conditions for a full ceasefire before spring, although he announced negotiations through US mediation. If the channel with the GRU is indeed still functioning, the next practical test will not be a political agreement, but whether it will be possible through it to coordinate something measurable — for example, shipping safety or prisoner exchanges.
