Russia’s top spy reveals topics of secret talks with CIA
The phone call between the two intelligence chiefs took place in late June and was first reported by Western media, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The outlets said Burns wanted to assure his Russian counterpart that the US government had nothing to do with the then-ongoing mutiny by businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the private military force.
The issue was indeed discussed, but Naryshkin believes that “it was, to a large degree, a pretext, because the main part of the conversation focused on the issue of Ukraine,” according to his interview with TASS. The call lasted for over an hour, he recalled.