Vladimir Putin visits Kursk as Russia pushes back Ukrainian troops in captured region

Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited a command post in Kursk, where his army chief told him Moscow’s forces are on the verge of retaking the Ukrainian-held border region.

Putin’s visit came just hours after Ukraine agreed to US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in its war with Russia.

He ordered the army to drive Ukraine’s forces out of the region “in the shortest time possible” and consider setting up a buffer zone along the border, according to footage shown on state television on Wednesday.

As Ukraine’s defence has collapsed in recent days, Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff, told Putin that their country had captured 400 soldiers and retaken 86 per cent of the territory seized by Kyiv in a surprise assault last summer.

Putin said prisoners should be treated “humanely” but warned any remaining Ukrainian fighters would be considered “terrorists”.

After meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Ukrainian and US officials backed a month-long cessation of hostilities along the entire Ukrainian frontline.

In return, the US resumed military aid and intelligence-sharing with Kyiv that had been suspended after last month’s bust-up in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In a briefing on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president described the meeting with US officials in Jeddah as “constructive”. He said the 30-day ceasefire was a US proposal he agreed to after being in touch with his team.

“I’ve said repeatedly that none of us trust the Russians, but we’re not going to play with narratives claiming that we don’t want this war to end,” said Zelenskyy, adding he was “serious” about the planned truce.

Ukraine’s president said support from other countries would be needed to monitor the ceasefire along the 1,000km-long frontline.

In February, Zelenskyy insisted the Russian territories held by Ukrainian forces in Kursk could be used as a bargaining chip in peace negotiations.

But as Ukraine struggles to defend the captured region, Moscow’s state media shared footage on Wednesday that it said showed Russian soldiers in the centre of Sudzha, the main municipality where Ukraine had set up a command centre.

“I don’t think they’ll be ready to stop in Sudzha,” said Solomiia Bobrovska, a Ukrainian opposition MP and member of the national security and intelligence committee.

Oleksandr Syrsky, Kyiv’s commander-in-chief, on Wednesday said Ukrainian forces had pulled back from parts of Kursk. “My priority was and remains to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. For this, our forces can manoeuvre to more advantageous lines,” he wrote on Telegram.

Fighting continued in Kursk including Sudzha’s suburbs, Syrsky added.

For Ukraine, a ceasefire being negotiated just as Ukrainian forces suffer military setbacks has painful echoes. In February 2015, Moscow pressed Kyiv to sign a ceasefire just as its troops were surrounding the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve.

Russia repeatedly violated that ceasefire agreement — a precedent Zelenskyy brought up at the White House, prompting Trump to conclude that the Ukrainian leader was not interested in ending the conflict.

“Putin will try to fill Trump’s ears with nothing, and Trump will have to decide what he does next,” said Mykhailo Samus, a Ukrainian military analyst. He added the US president was likely to offer Moscow the lifting of western sanctions in exchange for a ceasefire.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Wednesday said US national security adviser Mike Waltz had spoken to his Russian counterpart. “The president’s team continues to be engaged” on the ceasefire plan, she added.

Ukrainian officials and European allies on Wednesday welcomed the restoration of US military assistance and the sharing of intelligence that Kyiv’s forces use to hit targets beyond the frontline.

“This is an important signal to the whole world that the support to Ukraine is intact,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s top aide and leader of the Ukrainian delegation in Jeddah, wrote on Telegram.

Poland’s foreign minister Radek Sikorski on Wednesday said the US transit of military supplies to Ukraine via Poland had “returned to previous levels”, as had the Starlink satellite communications system owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk. Poland is paying for part of that service to Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer congratulated Trump and Zelenskyy for their “remarkable breakthrough”, adding: “Russia must now agree to a ceasefire and an end to the fighting too.”

Starmer said he would reconvene European leaders on Saturday “to discuss next steps” in the plan for an “assurance force” deployed to Ukraine to deter Russia from attacking again.

The Kremlin said it wanted to hear directly from the US before commenting on the ceasefire proposal. Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said Russia expected the US to “inform us of the details of the talks and the agreements that were reached”.

A call between Putin and Trump could be organised “very quickly”, Peskov said, but added the White House had yet to request one.

Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service on Wednesday said its director Sergei Naryshkin had spoken by phone with his US counterpart, CIA chief John Ratcliffe, with the two agencies agreeing to keep up regular contact.

Even as Russian forces kept pressing ahead in the Kursk region, advances on the rest of the frontline seemed to stall. Ukrainian troops managed in recent days to hold back Russian assaults around the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, and launched daring counter-attacks towards the centre of Toretsk, an industrial city Russian forces reached in August.

On the Pokrovsk front, one drone operator reacted to the news of the suggested ceasefire with one Ukrainian word: “Pobachymo” — “We’ll see.”

Additional reporting by Raphael Minder in Warsaw, Henry Foy in Brussels and Felicia Schwartz in Washington; cartography by Steven Bernard