Russia claimed Thursday that its troops have driven the Ukrainian army out of the largest town in Russia’s Kursk border region, as a senior Kremlin official said that a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire within the war three years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine would help Kyiv by giving its weary and short-handed military a break.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that it recaptured the town of Sudzha, hours after President Vladimir Putin visited his commanders in Kursk and wore military fatigues, couldn’t be independently verified. Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment on the claim.
The renewed Russian military push and Putin’s high-profile visit to his troops got here as U.S. President Donald Trump presses for a diplomatic end to the war. The U.S. on Tuesday lifted its March 3 suspension of military aid for Kyiv after senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials made progress on the way to stop the fighting during talks held in Saudi Arabia.
Trump said Wednesday that “it’s as much as Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to conform to the ceasefire. The U.S. president has made veiled threats to hit Russia with latest sanctions if it won’t engage with peace efforts.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that U.S. negotiators were on their approach to Russia, but he wouldn’t comment on Moscow’s view of the ceasefire proposal.
“Before the talks start, they usually haven’t began yet, it might be unsuitable to speak about it in public,” he told reporters.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that national security adviser Mike Waltz spoke Wednesday together with his Russian counterpart. She also confirmed that Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will head to Moscow for talks with Russian officials, possibly including Putin.
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Russian news agencies reported Thursday that Witkoff’s plane had landed in Moscow. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm the reports.
Senior U.S. officials say they hope to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine inside the subsequent few days.
But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, complained in televised remarks Thursday that a ceasefire would grant a “temporary break for the Ukrainian military.”
Ushakov said that Moscow wants a “long-term peaceful settlement that takes into consideration Moscow’s interests and concerns.” His comments got here a day after his phone call with Waltz.
Ushakov’s comments echoed statements from Putin, who has repeatedly said a short lived ceasefire would profit Ukraine and its Western allies.
The U.S. still has about $3.85 billion in congressionally authorized funding for future arms shipments to Ukraine, however the Trump administration has shown no interest thus far in using that authority to send additional weapons because it awaits the consequence of peace overtures.
By signaling its openness to a ceasefire, Ukraine has presented the Kremlin with a dilemma at a time when the Russian military has the upper hand within the war — whether to just accept a truce and abandon hopes of creating latest gains, or reject the offer and risk derailing a cautious rapprochement with Washington.
The Ukrainian army’s foothold inside Russia has been under intense pressure for months from a renewed effort by Russian forces, backed by North Korean troops. Ukraine’s daring incursion last August led to the primary occupation of Russian soil by foreign troops since World War II and embarrassed the Kremlin.
Chatting with commanders Wednesday, Putin said he expected the military “to completely free the Kursk region from the enemy in the closest future.”
Putin added that in the long run “it’s essential to take into consideration making a security zone alongside the state border,” in a signal that Moscow could attempt to expand its territorial gains by capturing parts of Ukraine’s neighboring Sumy region. That concept could complicate a ceasefire deal.
Ukraine launched the raid in a bid to counter the unceasingly glum news from the front line, in addition to draw Russian troops away from the battlefield inside Ukraine and gain a bargaining chip in any peace talks. However the incursion didn’t significantly change the dynamic of the war.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed late Wednesday that Russian forces were in command of Sudzha, a town near the border that previously was home to about 5,000 people.
Ukraine’s top military head, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said late Wednesday that Russian aviation had carried out an unprecedented variety of strikes on Kursk and that because of this Sudzha had been almost completely destroyed. He didn’t comment on whether Ukraine still controlled the settlement but said it was “maneuvering (troops) to more advantageous lines.”
Meanwhile, Major General Dmytro Krasylnykov, commander of Ukraine’s Northern Operational Command, which incorporates the Kursk region, was dismissed from his post, he told Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne on Wednesday. He told the outlet he was not given a reason for his dismissal, saying “I’m guessing, but I don’t wish to speak about it yet.”
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