On Friday, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Ukraine ordered a portion of its forces to surrender to Russia.
Putin’s televised comments said on social media that Trump urged Russian leaders to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers who are struggling to retain land in Russia’s Kursk region.
“I urged Putin to spare their lives,” Trump wrote.
Both presidents claimed on Friday that Ukrainian forces were surrounded by Kursk, the area where Kiev’s troops surprised Russia with their cross-border invasion last summer. Independent analysts have challenged these claims, and on Friday the Ukrainian forces rejected them again.
Still, the Russians had an advantage in the battles at Kursk. And Putin said Ukrainian leaders need to order “hold military forces in their arms and surrender” because of Trump’s appeal to them that it will be “effectively implemented.” Neither person develops the idea of the Russian army surrendering the lands of Ukraine.
The battle is furious in Kursk as Moscow forces push Moscow forces to drive Ukrainian troops out of small land seized in the summer. The Russian military has been making progress recently, with Putin urging them to finish work “in the shortest possible time.”
What happens next in Kursk has become a key issue before a potential ceasefire. Putin had explicitly suggested on Thursday that Ukraine would be ordered to order soldiers to surrender as part of the ceasefire agreement.
However, his comments on Friday were far more direct, as both the Kremlin and the White House showed negotiations were moving forward despite the raft of concessions that Moscow appears to be seeking.
After Russian leaders met with US special envoy Steve Witkov in Moscow late Thursday, top officials from both the White House and Kremlin expressed “cautious optimism.”
“I had a very good and productive discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday,” Trump wrote Friday morning about his true social platform. “It’s very likely that this terrifying, bloody war will finally end.”
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned whether Russia was acting in good faith, noting that after meeting with US officials in Saudi Arabia this week, his country had already agreed to a 30-day ceasefire.
“The world sees Russia intentionally sets conditions for complicating the process and dragging it out,” Zelensky told social media on Friday. “Russia is the only party that hopes that war will continue and diplomacy will collapse.”
It was not immediately clear whether Putin and Trump spoke directly to each other. The Kremlin said earlier Friday that Putin had “conveyed information and additional signals about President Trump” during a meeting with Witkov. Putin also said he was hoping to talk to Trump, but that the phone call had not been scheduled.
Trump was a true social post that also said thousands of Ukrainian troops were “completely surrounded by Russian troops.”
“There is no threat to a siege of our unit,” Ukrainian military general staff in a statement shortly after Friday called such reports “forged by the Russians.”
A Ukrainian soldier fighting in Kursk, who was contacted by phone on Friday, spoke on condition of anonymity discussing the current situation on the battlefield, saying, “The situation is bad, almost important.” But it wasn’t as bad as Trump explained in his post, the soldier added.
Ukrainian authorities on Friday ordered several villages in the Smie region, crossing the border from Kursk, to evacuate amid fears that the attacks could ripple out and the fighting could.
“Air attacks such as glide bombs and drones are intensifying in the border areas,” Volodymia Artikin, the Ukrainian head of the Smie Regional military junta, said on Facebook. He announced forced evacuations for eight villages on Friday, affecting 543 residents.
Driving Ukrainian troops from Kursk would deny Zelensky a key negotiation tip in negotiations. And before his meeting with Witkov, Putin indicated on Thursday that he would not hurry up accept the offer of a 30-day truce made by Ukraine and the United States this week. He told the press conference he was open to the proposal, but he suggested that he attempt to negotiate many issues, such as delivering western weapons to the ukrain, delivering western weapons, and delivering western weapons.
But Putin’s spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov suggested on Friday that the outcome of the diplomacy will only be revealed after Witkov explained to Trump and Russian and American leaders have spoken over the phone. The two leaders are known to have last spoken on February 12th.
Witkov, the officially envoy of the President of the Middle East, has taken on a key role as an interlocutor with Russia. He spent three hours last month completing a prisoner exchange with Putin.
“After Mr. Witkov has given his provincial chief all the information Mr. Witkov received in Moscow, we will decide the timing of the conversation that follows,” Mr. Peskov said. “We both understand that such a conversation is necessary.”
Peskov’s comments were the latest indication that Putin is likely trying to balance his desire to upset Trump with his efforts to force widespread concessions from the West and Ukraine. Trump says he wants to end the war as soon as possible, but Putin appears to have time on his side and believes an unconditional ceasefire will benefit Ukraine.
Kiev officials argue that while Putin is now fighting, he is simply trying to drag out negotiations and that he has no plans to make concessions that can bring about durable peace.
“Ukraine is seeking an end to the war,” the country’s foreign minister Andri Sibiha posted on X on Friday. “Putin is about to continue the war. The rest of his words are merely smoke screens.”
He contributed to reports from Mark Sontra and Dnipro in Ukraine.
