The hacker group Black8Mirror announced the publication of Mikhail Babich’s archive — the former presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District, who has served since 2021 as deputy director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation. Among the materials is alleged correspondence between Babich and presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov; the authenticity of the material cannot be independently verified by “Agentstvo”.
One of the fragments concerns the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Omsk on July 25. During the protocol portion of the meeting, which was open to the press, Tokayev suddenly began speaking about the war in Ukraine, said that its nature was “not entirely clear” to Kazakhstan, and proposed “freezing” it.
In the published dialogue, Babich asks “Peskov” about Tokayev’s speech. The account signed with Peskov’s name replies: “Pure improvisation”, and then writes that Tokayev was “asked by someone to say this” and speculates who exactly — “the Ukrainians, the Americans, or someone from within”.
Judging by the screenshots, the conversation began on the day of the meeting between Putin and Tokayev and continued the next day, when the interlocutors discussed Putin’s appearance in the courtyard of the Admiralty in St. Petersburg on Navy Day on July 26. In this episode, Babich describes the ceremony as “the filthy courtyard of the Admiralty”, and “Peskov” replies: “Well, it’s safe”; that day Putin arrived at the Main Admiralty by car, and the large naval parade was not held for the second year in a row.
The most detailed published dialogue is dated May 24, 2023. In the screenshot, a long text about Yevgeny Prigozhin is formatted as a forwarded message from Nikolai Petrov, the namesake of a well-known political scientist; “Agentstvo” contacted Nikolai Petrov for comment and linked the text to a deleted post from the Telegram channel “EZH”, which in May 2023 was called Brief.
In response to this quote, the account signed with Dmitry Peskov’s name writes: “The tragedy is that all of this is true. And all of us, one way or another, talk about it... only it is considered that this cannot be spoken about publicly”. Later he adds: “I don’t know why he is doing this. The day before yesterday I argued with him for an hour. It’s already useless. He thinks things are so bad that something has to be done..”. Then “Babich” writes that it “for the first time seems to him that he is right”, and asks whether they should “start helping him”, and “Peskov” replies: “It’s hardly possible to help a suicide. Later we’ll remember him as a hero and tell our children about him”.
For context, “Agentstvo” also reminded readers that the day before, a large interview with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had been published. In it, he said that Russia, instead of the stated “demilitarization”, had in fact militarized Ukraine, and also reflected on the value of Alexei Navalny’s investigations as a factor that restrained corruption.
Three weeks before that, Prigozhin published a video against a backdrop of dozens of bodies, in which he angrily demanded ammunition from Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, and on May 9 he spoke about a “happy old man” on whom Russia’s future depends, and asked what would happen if he turned out to be a “complete asshole”.
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