(Reuters)
NEW YORK, March 20 – 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.
