 "President-elect Vladimir Putin arrives for his inauguration ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on May 7, 2024. (Photo: Kremlin)")
Hours after US President Donald Trump pleaded the Russian leader to spare Ukrainian soldiers’ lives in Kursk , President Vladimir Putin on Friday asked Ukrainian forces in the province to surrender.
“We are sympathetic to President Trump’s call. If they lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and dignified treatment,” said Putin in televised remarks, according to AFP.
Reiterating his demand previously stated on Thursday, Putin said that Ukraine’s surrender in Kursk was a must for the 30-day ceasefire proposal to be considered.
“In order to effectively implement the US president’s call, (there needs to be) a corresponding order from Ukraine’s military-political leadership to its military to lay down their arms and surrender,” said Putin.
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Around the same time that Putin sought Ukraine’s surrender in Kursk, senior Russian official Dmitry Medvedev said that if Ukraine wouldn’t surrender in Kursk, the country’s soldiers would be “methodically and mercilessly destroyed”.
In near identical statements, Trump and Putin said on Friday that Ukrainian soldiers are encircled in Kursk. Independent commentators as well as Ukrainian government have refuted the claim. They maintain that while Russia has advanced in Kursk in recent days, Ukrainian troops have not been encircled and do not face imminent massacres as Trump and Putin have claimed.
Earlier in the day, Trump in a post on Truth Social made a nearly-unprecedented plea to Putin. He said he had “requested” Putin to spare Ukrainian soldiers’ lives in Kursk who, as per him and Putin, stood encircled and faced imminent deaths at scale worse than World War II.
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More Shorts“At this very moment, thousands of Ukrainian troops are 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! said Trump.
Putin’s demand of Ukrainian soldiers’ surrender is in line with the list of maximalist demands he listed on Thursday. At a press conference, he said that that while he accepted the idea of a 30-day ceasefire in principle, there were nuances that needed to be figured out. He then went on to list the nuances he wanted in place: Ukrainian troops in Kursk would not be allowed to withdraw, they would need to surrender; Ukraine would not receive weapons during the ceasefire; and Ukraine would neither mobilise or train soldiers during the ceasefire.
While Russian forces supported by North Korean soldiers have advanced in Kursk in recent days , independent commentators and Ukrainian military have refuted the claim that Ukrainian forces are on the verge of being massacres.
In a post in Ukrainian on X, the Ukrainian General Staff said in Ukrainian that accounts of encirclement in Kursk “are untrue and are being created by the Russians for political purposes and pressure on Ukraine and its partners”.
The Ukrainian General Staff further said, “The situation has not changed significantly over the past day. Combat operations in the operational zone of the Kursk group of forces continue. Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine have regrouped, withdrawn to more advantageous defense lines and are carrying out their assigned tasks in the Kursk region. Our soldiers are repelling the enemy’s offensive actions and inflicting effective fire damage with all types of weapons. Since the beginning of the current day, there have been 13 combat clashes in the Kursk direction. There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”