Moscow has driven this week to recapture much of the territory that Ukraine initially seized in its northwestern Kursk region last summer.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday denied his soldiers were surrounded in Russia’s Kursk region, where Moscow recaptured big chunks of land this week, as Russia reported taking two additional villages back in the border area.
US President Donald Trump had earlier asked Russia’s Vladimir Putin on social media to let live the Ukrainian soldiers that he claimed were “surrounded” by the Russian military. Moscow this week drove to reclaim most of the territory that Ukraine originally gained in its western Kursk province last summer.
Zelenskyy has admitted that the position in the Kursk region is “very difficult” for Ukraine, but refuted Trump’s words. There is no encirclement of our troops,” he posted on social media, and added: “Our troops continue to repel Russian and North Korean groupings in the Kursk region.” Kyiv had expected to employ the Russian regions as a bargaining tool in any negotiations to bring an end to the conflict that has lasted over three years.
The UK on Saturday held a virtual summit on how to safeguard any ceasefire in Ukraine, but warned Zelenskyy that Moscow was determined to “drag out the war” and “dismiss diplomacy.” He also blamed Moscow for massing forces on the border with “an intent to attack our Sumy region” – attacked by Moscow at the beginning of its 2022 invasion but so far spared much of the conflict witnessed in other parts of eastern Ukraine.
Putin this week had not signed up to an immediate Ukrainian ceasefire put forward by the US, instead setting terms and expressing “serious concerns” about the proposal. The Kremlin celebrated its soldiers pushing the Ukrainian army out of areas in the Kursk region, as Moscow on Saturday shared photographs of a ruined centre in Sudzha – the Ukrainian-held main town for months.
