By Erin Banco
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk have lost ground in recent days but are not encircled by Russian forces, contrary to recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to three U.S. and European officials familiar with their governments’ intelligence assessments.
U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have shared that assessment with the White House over the past week, a U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter said. However, Trump has continued to claim that Ukrainian troops are surrounded in western Russia’s Kursk region.
The U.S. and European intelligence assessments show that Ukrainian troops have faced intense pressure from Russian forces but they are not completely surrounded, the officials said.
Trump has said he hopes to bring a quick end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Experts described a claim by Putin on March 13 that Ukrainian forces in Kursk were cut off and would ultimately need to “surrender or die” as misinformation intended to show that Russia is offering concessions by saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, giving Putin leverage in ceasefire negotiations.
In a social media post on March 14, Trump said he had asked the Russian president to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainians who he said were “completely surrounded” and vulnerable. Putin said that he would do so if they surrendered.
Trump repeated the claim about “encircled” Ukrainian forces during a speech at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Monday and in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
The U.S. National Security Council did not respond directly to questions about the intelligence assessments but referred Reuters to a joint statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz that mentioned Trump’s call with Zelenskiy on Wednesday and how the two leaders agreed to continue to share intelligence on Kursk.
The White House, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denied that Ukrainian forces are surrounded and said Putin was lying about the reality on the ground.
The Ukrainian leader acknowledged his military is in a difficult position in Kursk and that he expects continued attacks from Russia as it attempts to push Ukrainian forces out of the region.
Zelenskiy’s office and the Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Since August, when Ukrainian soldiers smashed their way across Russia’s western border in Kursk, Kyiv has lost almost all of the territory it gained. It once held close to 500 square miles of land but now only holds between 20 and 30 square miles, according to open source reports.
Trump spoke with Putin on Tuesday. During that call, the Russian leader said he would halt attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, a promise that fell short of the full 30-day ceasefire Trump has called for and that Zelenskiy has said Ukraine would be prepared to accept.
“This is likely part of Putin’s effort to make the point that they are winning the war and that resistance is useless and that it is inevitable that Russia’s greater strength will bring victory. That resonates with Trump,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Both sides are maneuvering to get into a better position for the negotiations.”
Although Russian forces appear to be making incremental advances in Kursk, the officials who spoke to Reuters and experts who study the battlefield said Putin’s March 13 statement was not accurate.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based conflict monitor, said on March 14 that it had “observed no geolocated evidence to indicate that Russian forces have encircled a significant number of Ukrainian forces in Kursk Oblast or elsewhere along the frontline in Ukraine.”
(Reporting by Erin Banco; Editing by Don Durfee and Nia Williams)
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