CIA denies Trump and Putin's claims on Ukrainian troops encirclement in Kursk region - Reuters
Photo: The CIA has refuted Putin and Trump's simultaneous lies about the encirclement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Getty Images)
Ukrainian soldiers have retreated in the Kursk region in recent days, but are not surrounded by Russian troops. CIA data refute simultaneous statements by US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, according to Reuters.
US intelligence agencies, including the CIA, shared this assessment with the White House last week, sources told Reuters. However, Trump continued to claim that Ukrainian troops were surrounded in the Kursk region of western Russia.
According to the officials, US and European intelligence assessments indicate that Ukrainian troops are facing heavy pressure from Russian forces, but are not surrounded.
Putin and Trump's lies
Experts described Putin's March 13 statement that Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region were cut off and would eventually have to surrender or die as disinformation designed to show that Russia was offering concessions to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, giving Putin leverage in ceasefire negotiations.
Trump said on March 14 that he had asked Putin to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainians, who he said were completely surrounded and vulnerable. Putin said he would do so if they surrendered. Trump repeated the statement about the surrounded Ukrainian forces on March 17 and 18.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that Ukrainian troops were surrounded and said that Putin was lying about the real situation on the ground.
The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that his army is in a difficult situation in the Kursk region and that he expects continued attacks from Russia, which is trying to push Ukrainian troops out of the region.
Since August, when Ukrainian soldiers broke through Russia's western border in Kursk, Kyiv has lost almost all the territory it had gained.
Tactics for negotiations
Trump spoke with Putin on March 18. During this conversation, Putin rejected the 30-day ceasefire that Trump had called for and that Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready 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," says Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to him, “Both sides are maneuvering to get into a better position for the negotiations.”
Although Russian troops are making gradual advances in Kursk, officials and experts studying the battlefield said Putin's March 13 statement was not true.
The Institute for the Study of War 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.”
