Russian forces have almost completely surrounded Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region, with some Ukrainian units forced to leave their vehicles behind as they pull back, according to a U.S. military official.
There are growing indications that Russia could re-take Kursk “very soon,” the official said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hesitant response to a U.S-brokered proposed ceasefire in Ukraine has coincided with a push by his country’s forces to roll back Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region, according to two Western officials.
Ukrainian troops seized the area inside Russia, just over Ukraine’s eastern border, last year in an audacious move that embarrassed Moscow. But losing control of the Kursk region would be a blow for Kyiv, as the Ukrainian government has viewed the territory as valuable leverage in any future peace talks.
Over the past 11 days, Russian forces stepped up ground and air attacks on the Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region from multiple directions, two Western officials and a military analyst said.
The intensified offensive was launched after the Trump administration temporarily suspended military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv on March 3, which a European official and analysts say was likely not a coincidence.
The U.S. assistance was restored on Wednesday, after the Trump administration said it was satisfied Ukraine’s government was ready to negotiate a ceasefire with Russia.
After hammering Ukrainian troops for days around Sudzha, Russian forces have taken back the town in the Kursk region, Russian officials said on Thursday.
If current trends continue, Russian forces could soon recapture the entire area that Ukrainian troops had occupied since August, according to Angelica Evans, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group that publishes daily assessments of the conflict.
Russia had steadily built up a large force around Kursk since Ukrainians seized the area in August, with an estimated 78,000 Russian and North Korean troops on the ground, according to Evans.
“They have had the capability to retake the salient for a couple of months, probably. But we have really not seen an effort to prioritize it until the last week or so,” she said.
Over two days, Russia dropped several three-ton FAB-3000 bombs against Ukrainian targets in Kursk that it rarely employs on the front line, according to Evans. The Russians use guidance kits to convert large free-fall bombs into guided glide bombs that can be launched from outside the range of most of Ukraine’s air defense systems.
Ukraine denied that its troops were surrounded in Kursk or in danger of encirclement.
“Reports of the alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners,” Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement Friday.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia in August marked the first time a foreign army had occupied Russian land since World War II.
As Ukrainian troops came under pressure in Kursk, President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Putin in Moscow on Thursday to try to advance a proposed ceasefire agreement in Ukraine. A Kremlin spokesperson said afterward that there were “reasons to be cautiously optimistic” about the prospects for ending the war.
Before meeting Witkoff, Putin said that although in theory he accepted the ceasefire on the table, he said many “nuances” had to be worked out, including the fate of Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
Putin appeared to be trying to complicate the negotiations to buy time for Russian forces as they advance in Kursk, the European official said.
Referring to the Ukrainians in Kursk, Putin asked what will happen to the troops if a ceasefire is agreed. “Will all those who are there come out without a fight? Or will the Ukrainian leadership order them to lay down arms and surrender?”
In a social media post on Friday, Trump indicated Ukrainian troops faced dire circumstances, though he did not specify where.
“Thousands of Ukrainian troops are completely surrounded by the Russian military,” Trump wrote in all capital letters. He added that had asked Putin to spare the lives of the Ukrainian troops.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country continues to support a 30-day ceasefire as a step toward a lasting peace. He accused Russia of “deliberately setting conditions that only complicate and drag out the process.”