President Donald Trump on Friday said he’s asked Russian president Vladimir Putin to order his troops not to commit a massacre of Ukrainian soldiers who they are attempting to dislodge from the Kursk region after months of occupation by Kyiv’s forces.
In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump described U.S. talks with the Russian leader as “very good and productive discussions” and said there was “a very good chance” that the three-year-old war Putin started against Ukraine without provocation could “finally come to an end.”
While the wording of Trump’s post appeared to suggest that the American leader had spoken directly with his Russian counterpart, an administration source told The Independent that Trump was referring to talks between Russian officials and his friend turned special envoy, New York real estate mogul Steve Witkoff.
Trump also repeated a Russian claim that their troops have completely encircled Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region after expelling them from Sudzha, one of the largest towns in the region, and said the Ukrainian soldiers were “in a very bad and vulnerable position” at risk of “a horrible massacre” at the hands of Russia, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Trump described his conversation with the Russian leader as “very good and productive discussions” (AFP via Getty Images)
“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared,” Trump said.
Earlier in the week, Putin had made an unannounced visit to the region to address frontline troops, who he told to “completely liberate” Kursk as soon as possible towards the goal of establishing a “buffer zone” along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
But Putin does not appear inclined to order his forces to be merciful despite Trump’s exhortations.
He told the Russian forces he visited in Kursk that Ukrainian soldiers who they capture should be treated as “terrorists” rather than enemy forces entitled to Geneva Convention protections.
Putin also said on Thursday that he supports Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire in the long-running conflict but he warned that Russia could not stop fighting until certain conditions were met.
Trump called the Russian leader’s statement “very promising” in remarks the same day but in a separate Truth Social post on Friday he urged Moscow to sign and honor “a Cease Fire and Final Agreement” to extract the United States from a “real ‘mess’ with Russia” caused by the previous Biden administration’s work to rally the democracies of the west in support of Ukraine’s defense following Putin’s decision to launch the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Witkoff, who arrived in Moscow for talks with Putin and other Russian officials earlier this week, was tapped to be the president’s special envoy for the Middle East after Trump defeated then-vice president Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election last November.
He became involved in the Ukraine talks after Trump honored Moscow’s demand to keep his first choice for an Ukraine envoy, retired U.S. Army general Keith Kellogg, out of the talks.
Russian officials reportedly objected to Kellogg because of his background as a former military officer and his support for Ukraine’s defense.
One official told NBC News that Kellog was “not our kind of person, not of the calibre we are looking for.”
This article was amended on March 12, 2025. It originally stated that Trump and Putin had spoken directly, but the White House later clarified that only the US envoy has spoken to the Russian leader this week.
