Moscow:
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the Ukrainian troops fighting in the Kursk region on Friday to surrender, after US President Donald Trump encouraged him to “save” the life of Ukrainian soldiers.
Trump and Putin said that the Russian army had surrounded the Ukrainian troops there – claims that had been rejected by Kiev, even when President Volodymyr Zenskypy allowed his troops to come under increasing pressure.
Russia has mounted a rapidly counter -offensive last week and recapturing pieces of land and settlements in the western border region from Ukraine.
“We are sympathetic to President Trump's call,” Putin said in on television on television.
“If they capture their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed to live and be worthy treatment,” he added.
“To effectively implement the call from the US President, (there must) be a corresponding order of the military political leadership of Ukraine to his army to lay their arms and surrender,” added Putin.
In a position on his social social platform, Trump had attracted Putin about what he said that “thousands” Ukrainian troops “completely surrounded by the Russian army, and in a very poor and vulnerable position”.
“I strongly asked President Putin that their lives are being saved. This would be a terrible massacre, someone who has not been seen since the Second World War,” he said.
Moscow has recaptured the vast majority of territory that KYIV has seized in his cross -border attack in Kursk last August, including in a fast counter -offensive in the past week.
Ukraine denied the claims of Trump and Putin and said that it was held there.
“There is no threat that our units are surrounded,” the general staff wrote in a statement on social media.
But Zensky admitted that his troops were under intense Russian pressure.
“The situation in the Kursk region is clearly very difficult,” said Zensky reporters – including AFP journalists – in Kiev.
He said, however, that the offensive of Ukraine there had forced Russia to pull his troops from other controversial areas of the front, making the pressure on Ukrainian troops to keep control over the eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
“I think the situation in the Pokrovsk sector is now stable, and it will be very difficult to find a chance to occupy Pokrovsk again,” said Zensky.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by Our staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
