Putin Trump ‘collaboration on Ukraine’s surrender’ Zelensky ‘gamble frustrated’
Putin and Trump are sticking to ‘Ukraine’s surrender’, frustrating Zelensky’s ‘gamble to push out Biden and negotiate the Kursk occupation with Trump’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech on the 12th that Ukraine should order some of its troops to surrender to Russia, hours after US President Trump said he had “very good and productive” discussions with Putin about the possibility of a ceasefire.
The New York Times reported on the same day that “Putin’s televised remarks came right after Trump told TruthSocial that he had urged the Russian leader to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers struggling to defend their land in the Kursk region of Russia,” calling it “a remarkable scene,” and that “neither of them raised the issue of Russian troops stationed on Ukrainian soil.”
President Trump wrote on TruthSocial on the 12th that “I strongly urged President Putin to spare their lives.” The New York Times reported that “both presidents claimed shortly after Trump’s social media post that Ukrainian troops were surrounded in Kursk, the area where Kiev’s military crossed the border last summer and stunned Russia,” and that “independent analysts have disputed this claim, and the Ukrainian military again rejected it today.”
AP said that “it is unclear what impact the recent U.S. intelligence halt had on the Battle of Kursk,” but that “Russian forces occupied about 166 square kilometers in Kursk from March 7 to March 10, during which a pause was in place, and last week hundreds of Russian special forces crawled 15 kilometers through a natural gas pipeline and launched a surprise attack behind Ukrainian defenses,” effectively approaching it as “Russia’s success in completely encircling Ukrainian forces due to the U.S. intelligence blackout.”
AP continued that “Ukrainian soldiers stationed northwest of Suja in Lebedivka simply abandoned their positions,” the Ukrainian drone operator said, adding that “everyone just left.” , and he eventually left.
The AP reported in its coverage of the “Last Days of the Battle of Sudzha” that “lack of manpower, weapons and ammunition also hampered the Ukrainian soldiers,” and that “they were outnumbered by an average of 5 to 1, and in some places by 10 to 1.”
The AP said of the battle for Sudzha that “over the past three months, the Russians have slowly worn down the Ukrainian forces,” and that “the Ukrainian troops, under heavy Russian air attacks, often had to carry ammunition, food and medical supplies 20 to 30 kilometers (12 to 18 miles) on their backs to reinforce them.”
“By the time they got to their positions, they were completely exhausted,” a Ukrainian sergeant told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian President Zelensky acknowledged on Monday that while his country’s soldiers had shown no signs of surrendering or withdrawing from Kursk, the situation in the area was “very difficult.”
He went on to question whether Russia was acting in good faith, and asked Putin The president accused him of "doing everything possible to make diplomacy fail."
President Zelensky repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine had already agreed to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire to stop the war that the Russian leader began three years ago by ordering a full-scale invasion, but did not mention the "failure of the negotiation strategy after the Kursk operation" that he led.
President Zelensky faced a bigger loss due to the strategy of supporting the Trump administration after Biden's defeat in the US presidential election by rejecting the negotiation approach under the Biden Democratic regime that led military support.
The AP diagnosed Zelensky's strategy failure that day, saying, "As momentum for a ceasefire with Russia was building, Ukraine lost almost a valuable bargaining chip," and "More importantly, Ukrainian leaders believed that occupying Russian territory would help in future peace negotiations with the enemy." The AP reported on the Kursk situation, saying, “Ukrainian forces are retreating after a crushing defeat, almost a defeat, in Sudzha,” and “politically speaking, the retreat from a significant part of the Kursk region could be a moment of reckoning for President Zelensky and his military advisers.” The Kursk invasion was intended to divert Russian forces from inside Ukraine, and the lands gained were expected to help Ukraine reclaim some of the 20% of the country that Russia seized after its full-scale invasion in February 2022, but Zelensky’s “surrender” has now been transformed into a tool for Putin and Trump to entice.
The AP said, “On the 13th, Ukrainian forces quickly tried to establish a defensive line near the border to prevent Russia from turning its attack on Sudzha into a springboard for an advance into northeastern Ukraine.” “To escape the Kursk region, Ukrainian soldiers had to walk dozens of kilometers to get back into Ukraine while avoiding Russian forces. Some soldiers are angry that their commanders did not issue the order to withdraw weeks ago when it would have been safer to do so,” the AP said.
Ukrainian soldiers and commanders fear that Russian air supremacy could cut off a vital logistics route for the remaining troops in Kursk, the AP said. “The defeat at Suja is the culmination of months of fighting in Kursk, and fighting continues around Suja as some Ukrainian soldiers try to re-enter the neighboring Sumy region of Ukraine from the Russian Kursk region,” the AP said.
“We know that the Russians are holding off on (ceasefire talks) until they retake Kursk, and only then will they talk,” a Ukrainian commander who spoke on condition of anonymity told the AP. “But we already have no leverage to retake our territory, to put it mildly.” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi told soldiers on the 12th that he had ordered them to “withdraw to more advantageous positions in Kursk,” adding that “preserving the lives of the soldiers is the top priority.”
The AP reported that “some soldiers, however, said they should have done it earlier,” indicating that the withdrawal was late.
“One Ukrainian soldier said he and his comrades decided to ignore the company commander’s order and retreat on their own,” the AP reported. “We are tired and exhausted of sitting under constant fire,” the soldier said. “All the main roads are being monitored by Russian drones, so the soldiers are withdrawing in small groups along the trees to avoid detection.”
“All the units that are left there, I don’t know how they (the command) are going to get them out because all the supply chains have been cut off,” the soldier told the AP, referring to the area around Sudzha. “Those who came out, there are a lot of our dead bodies and a lot of burned equipment,” the soldier said. Russian forces are narrowing the escape route for Ukrainian soldiers north and south of Sudza.
Ukraine still controls part of Kursk along its border with Sumy, and Ukrainian soldiers told the AP that their attention has shifted to building a defensive line along the border to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory.
“Trenches are being dug quickly, but it is not clear whether they will be sufficient,” the AP said.
“Putin’s remarks on Wednesday were much more direct, and came as both the Kremlin and the White House signaled that negotiations were progressing despite the many concessions Moscow appears to be seeking,” the Times said. “After the Russian leader met with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow late on Wednesday, senior officials in the White House and the Kremlin expressed “cautiously optimistic” about the situation. President Trump wrote on his TruthSocial platform on the 14th, "We had a very good and productive conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. There is a very good chance that this terrible and bloody war can finally end."
The New York Times said, "It was not immediately clear whether President Putin and President Trump spoke directly," and the Kremlin reported that Putin "gave President Trump information and additional signals" during the meeting with Special Envoy Witkov.
President Trump wrote on TruthSocial that thousands of Ukrainian troops were "completely surrounded by Russian forces."
The New York Times said of Trump's post, "It appears to refer to Russia's claim that Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded in Kursk."