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Donald Trump has said the US had “very good and productive discussions” with Vladimir Putin and that “thousands of Ukrainian troops” were surrounded by the Russian army, a claim refuted by the Ukrainian military and independent analysts.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said there was a “very good chance” the war between Russia and Ukraine could “finally come to an end”.
The US president made his comments after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, held late-night talks with Putin on Thursday to discuss the US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire.
The White House clarified that Witkoff, not Trump, spoke to Putin on Thursday.
Kyiv has already accepted the proposal, while Putin on Thursday set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to the truce, which includes the condition that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise during the 30-day truce.
Trump appeared to repeat claims made by Putin a day earlier that Russian forces had encircled a large number of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region, where Moscow is on the verge of expelling the Ukrainian army from the land it captured last year.
Trump wrote that there “were thousands of Ukrainian troops completely surrounded by the Russian military, and in a very bad and vulnerable position”.
“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!” Trump added.
The Ukrainian military was quick to dismiss claims that its forces were encircled in the Kursk region.
“Reports of the alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners,” Ukraine’s general staff wrote in a statement published on its media channels.
“Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine have successfully regrouped, withdrawn to more advantageous defensive positions, and are executing their assigned tasks within the Kursk region … There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”
Ukrainian security sources, independent military analysts, and even pro-Russian Telegram channels have disputed the encirclement claims by Putin and Trump.
Ukrainian authorities have not officially announced a full withdrawal from the Kursk region, but soldiers fighting in the region say a staged withdrawal has been under way for two weeks, and that while many soldiers have faced a dangerous and challenging route to withdraw, they do not believe there is a mass encirclement of troops.
“After seven months, we simply withdrew. There was no encirclement,” one senior security official told the Guardian on Thursday.
Artem Kariakin, a Ukrainian soldier who was previously involved in the Kursk offensive, said: “Trump’s words about the Kursk region have nothing to do with reality.”
Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Carnegie Endowment, described the claims of a mass encirclement as “fiction”.
Some influential Russian pro-war military bloggers have cast doubt in recent days of the encirclement claims by Russian officials, saying none of the signs of such an action have been visible.
Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had sent Trump a message via Witkoff about his proposal for a ceasefire, adding that it saw grounds for “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached.
Peskov’s statement was echoed by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said there were “reasons to be cautiously optimistic”.
“We’ll examine the Russian position more closely and the president will then determine what the next steps are. Suffice it to say, I think there is reason to be cautiously optimistic,” Rubio said.
“We continue to recognise this is a difficult and complex situation … it will not be easy, it will not be simple, but we certainly feel like we’re at least some steps closer to ending this war and bringing peace.
“Obviously, we will see what Russia and others are willing to do. It’s not just Russia, obviously, it has to be acceptable to Ukraine,” he said.
Despite apparent optimism from the White House, US intelligence services have reportedly assessed that Putin remains committed to achieving “his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.
The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing an intelligence report circulated among Trump administration policymakers on 6 March, which stated that Putin remains determined to maintain control over Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reiterated on Friday that Russian attempts to set up conditions for the 30-day ceasefire only “complicate and drag out the process”.
“Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down,” Zelenskyy said on X after a call with the secretary of state of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
“Putin will not end the war on his own. But the strength of America is enough to make it happen,” he said.
Zelenskyy emphasised Ukraine’s commitment to upholding the ceasefire, describing it as an opportunity to establish a lasting peace.
“During the period of silence, we could prepare a reliable peace plan, put it on the table, discuss the details, and implement it. We are ready,” the Ukrainian president said.
