MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/. The United States is in the know about the details of ostensibly confidential conversations between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny because Washington’s intelligence operatives are most likely surreptitiously listening in on them, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

Her statement comes in the wake of a Washington Post report about Zaluzhny telling Zelensky that the situation on the battlefield would hardly improve whether or not the president sacks the general.

"We have several versions: Version A is that direct eyewitnesses to the talks are leaking what was said to the Americans; Version B is that the principals to the talks themselves are reporting back to the Americans on their content; while Version C has it that the Americans are bugging the venue of the talks to listen in on them," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Zelensky had already made up his mind to dismiss Zaluzhny, but that the official announcement may be postponed. Later, CNN clarified that the official decree sacking the commander would be signed by the end of this week.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that there are a lot of questions about the contradictory news about Zaluzhny’s dismissal, but that one thing is clear: "Everything is not going well" for the Kiev regime. Meanwhile, Zakharova asserted that the situation around Zaluzhny vividly reflects the death throes and disintegration of Ukraine's statehood.