The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin said on Wednesday that he and his CIA counterpart William Burns discussed “what to do with Ukraine” during a phone call late last month, Russian news agency TASS reported. quoted by Reuters.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported on June 30 that William Burns called Naryshkin to assure the Kremlin that the United States was not involved in the brief uprising a week earlier by Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Company fighters.

Naryshkin confirmed that Burns was referring to the “events of June 24”, when the mercenaries took control of a city in southern Russia and then marched towards Moscow, but their march was halted shortly after an agreement was reached with the Kremlin to end the rebellion.

However, the head of SVR claims that most of his conversation with his American colleague, which lasted about an hour, was devoted to Ukraine. “We considered and discussed what to do with Ukraine,” Naryshkin said.

The CIA declined to comment on his statements, Reuters reports.

Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia in February 2022, says that other countries should not negotiate its future on its behalf, and the United States has repeatedly supported this principle, summed up in the slogan “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Burns and Naryshkin have maintained a line of communication since the beginning of the war, at a time when other direct contacts between Moscow and Washington were minimal and relations were at their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

“EARLY OR LATE” DISCUSSIONS.

Naryshkin told TASS that at some point military talks will become possible. The agency did not specify whether this comment was part of the conversation between the head of SVR and Burns.

“It is quite natural that sooner or later it will be possible to hold negotiations, because any conflict, including an armed one, ends with negotiations, but the conditions for them must still be met,” Naryshkin said, as quoted by TASS.

When asked about this information, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the president of Ukraine, told Reuters that at the moment “someone like Naryshkin has no influence on how this war ends.”

Podolyak said that Russia will lose the war and there can be no negotiations with people like Naryshkin. “This Russian elite perceives events completely inadequately, so there is nothing to discuss with them,” Podolyak noted.

Ukraine, which launched a long-awaited counteroffensive last month, says it will not try to negotiate with Moscow for the time being because it could effectively freeze the situation on the battlefield, where Russia has occupied more than a sixth of its territory.