Putin urges Ukrainian fighters in Russian territory to ‘surrender’

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Friday urged beleaguered Ukrainian troops in the Russian region of Kursk to “surrender,” hours after US President Donald Trump pleaded for their lives.

Russia has launched a swift counteroffensive in the western border region in recent days, reclaiming many of the territories it retook from Ukraine during a stunning incursion last August.

A Ukrainian defeat in Kursk would be a serious blow to Kyiv’s efforts to use its control over the region as a bargaining chip in potential peace talks with Moscow.

We are guided by President Trump’s appeal, Putin said.

“If they lay down their arms, and surrender, life and dignified treatment will be guaranteed to them,” Putin said in remarks broadcast a day after he held talks with a US envoy on a ceasefire.

Trump claimed “thousands” of Ukrainian troops are “completely surrounded by the Russian military, and in a very bad and vulnerable position.”

‘Horrible massacre’ –

“I have urged President Putin very strongly to be very lifepostm with respect to them. It would be a terrible massacre, one not witnessed since World War II,” he said.

Ukraine’s military leadership denied the assertions, though President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that his forces were under increasing pressure.

“There is no threat of encirclement of our units,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on social media.

Zelensky delivered a sober assessment in remarks to reporters in Kyiv. “The situation in the Kursk region, it is clear, is very difficult,” he said.

But he emphasized that the campaign remained worthwhile.

Russia, he said, had had to withdraw troops from other parts of the south on the frontline, alleviating pressure on Ukrainian troops struggling to hold on to the eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

Trump’s most recent remarks came while he updated his ceasefire initiative. His personal emissary Steve Witkoff met late Thursday with Putin in Moscow to outline the specifics of a joint US-Ukrainian plan for a 30-day ceasefire of hostilities in the three-year-old war.

“We had very good and productive discussions yesterday with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and there is a very, very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can be brought to a very rapid conclusion,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Ukraine losing grip –

On Thursday, Putin said he had “serious questions” about the proposal.

And Zelensky charged that the Russian leader was trying to sabotage the cease-fire push by questioning how a cease-fire would be established.

“He’s doing everything now to anihilate diplomacy by laying the most difficult and, simply speaking, impossible conditions from the very first beginning to a ceasefire,” Zelensky said in a post on X.

The Kremlin said Friday it was “cautiously optimistic” a deal could be reached but that Trump and Putin had to talk directly before talks could advance.

“We’ll decide when to have a discussion depending on when Mr. Witkoff brings the complete information to President Trump,” Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, but the president nonetheless has already aligned himself with President Trump’s position.”

The United States had “some cautious optimism” following Witkoff’s visit, and “we hope to get to a place eventually of talks” between Israelis and Palestinians, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in a Fox News interview.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a meeting of the Group of Seven western powers in Canada that both sides would have to make “concessions”.

G7 foreign ministers warned Russia that it would face fresh sanctions unless it accepted a ceasefire “on equal terms”.

“They talked about imposing additional costs on Russia if such a ceasefire is not agreed, including through additional sanctions, price caps on oil, as well as on additional support for Ukraine, and other measures.”

Putin said Thursday he wanted any deal to guarantee “long-term peace”, a reference to a key Moscow demand that Ukraine be prevented from joining NATO.

Zelensky labelled it as ”very manipulative”, while Germany deemed it a “delaying tactic”.

In addition to the pressure in Kursk, Russia has been making gains in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region for the last year.

Ukraine hoped that its grip on Kursk would give it leverage in negotiations with Russia and that there would be a possible land swap with Moscow, which has occupied about a fifth of Ukraine since seizing Crimea in 2014 and opening its military campaign in February 2022.