Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump for “doing everything” to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, after Trump said the US has had “very good and productive discussions” with Putin in recent days.
Putin told a meeting of his security chiefs that improved relations with the US were now on the agenda. “We know that the new administration headed by President Trump is doing everything to restore at least something of what was basically destroyed by the previous US administration,” he said.
Putin also responded to an appeal by Trump to save the lives of “thousands” of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers, and said he would heed it as long as the soldiers surrendered. However, no evidence has emerged to back up Putin and Trump’s claims that there is a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian troops.
The exchange of warm words between Trump and Putin is likely to cause further alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, already spooked by signs of the new US administration cosying up to Moscow while exerting pressure on Ukraine.
The remarks came after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, held late-night talks with Putin on Thursday to discuss the US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in war on Ukraine.
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Kyiv has already accepted the proposal, while Putin on Thursday set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to the truce, which includes the condition that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise during the 30-day truce.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, however, Trump said there was a “very good chance” the war between Russia and Ukraine could “finally come to an end”.
Trump also said he had appealed to Putin to save the lives of “thousands of Ukrainian troops” supposedly surrounded by the Russian army. Putin first made the claim earlier in the week when he said Ukrainian troops had been surrounded during a retreat from Russia’s Kursk region, and had the choice to “surrender or die”.
Trump repeated Putin’s claim, writing that thousands of troops had been “completely surrounded” during the retreat. “I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!” he wrote.
Putin told his security council that he had heard Trump’s appeal, and said the lives of Ukrainian troops would be spared if they surrendered. The Ukrainian military and independent analysts, however, denied there was an encirclement of troops.
“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,” the general staff wrote in a statement published on its media channels. “There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”
Ukrainian security sources, independent military analysts and even pro-Russian Telegram channels disputed the encirclement claims by Putin and Trump.
Soldiers fighting in the region say a staged withdrawal has been under way for two weeks, and while many soldiers have faced a dangerous and challenging route to withdraw, they do not believe there is a mass encirclement of troops. “After seven months, we simply withdrew. There was no encirclement,” one senior security official told the Guardian on Thursday.
Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Carnegie Endowment, described the claims of a mass encirclement as “fiction”.
Some influential Russian pro-war military bloggers have cast doubt in recent days of the encirclement claims by Russian officials, saying none of the signs of such an action have been visible.
Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin had sent Trump a message via Witkoff about his proposal for a ceasefire, adding that it saw grounds for “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached.
Peskov’s statement was echoed by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said there were “reasons to be cautiously optimistic”.
“We’ll examine the Russian position more closely and the president will then determine what the next steps are. Suffice it to say, I think there is reason to be cautiously optimistic,” Rubio said. “Obviously, we will see what Russia and others are willing to do. It’s not just Russia, obviously, it has to be acceptable to Ukraine.”
Despite apparent optimism from the White House, US intelligence services have reportedly assessed that Putin remains committed to achieving “his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.
The Washington Post reported on Friday citing an intelligence report circulated among Trump administration policymakers on 6 March, which stated that Putin remains determined to maintain control over Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reiterated on Friday that Russian attempts to set up conditions for the 30-day ceasefire only “complicate and drag out the process”.
“Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down,” Zelenskyy said on X after a call with the secretary of state of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. “Putin will not end the war on his own. But the strength of America is enough to make it happen.”
Zelenskyy emphasised Ukraine’s commitment to upholding the ceasefire, describing it as an opportunity to establish a lasting peace. “During the period of silence, we could prepare a reliable peace plan, put it on the table, discuss the details, and implement it. We are ready,” the Ukrainian president said.