Thousands of Ukrainian troops who stormed into Russia’s Kursk region last August are almost surrounded by Russian forces there in a major blow to Kyiv, which hoped to use its presence as leverage over Moscow in any peace talks, Reuters has reported, citing open source maps. The news agency said the maps showed Ukraine’s situation in Kursk had deteriorated sharply in the past three days, after Russian forces retook territory as part of a gathering counteroffensive that has nearly cut the Ukrainian force in two and separated the main group from its principal supply lines. The situation for Ukraine comes after Washington suspended its intelligence sharing with Kyiv and raises the possibility that its forces may be forced into a retreat back into Ukraine or risk being captured or killed. “The situation [for Ukraine in Kursk] is very bad,” said Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. Yan Matveev, another analyst, said Ukraine had a difficult choice to make.
About three-quarters of the Ukrainian force inside Russia was now almost completely encircled, according to the open source mapping on Friday from Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian military blogging resource. It showed the troops were joined to the remaining Ukrainian force located closer to the Russian border by a land corridor around 1km long and less than 500m wide at its narrowest point as Russian forces move to cut that off too. Deep State said Russian forces were also pressuring Kyiv’s positions in the border area with the Sumy region and moving to try to block supplies to Ukrainian forces inside Kursk.
Russia carried out huge ballistic missile and drone strikes across Ukraine a day after the US stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv which had previously given advance warnings of attacks. The strikes came early on Friday as a Ukrainian delegation prepared to meet with US counterparts in Saudi Arabia next week for talks about a possible end to the war, report Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh. In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump appeared to criticise Russia’s latest bombardment. The US president posted: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.” Separately, Trump said he found it “easier” to deal with Russia than with Ukraine in efforts to end the war and that he trusted Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. “I believe him,” Trump said. “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine and they don’t have the cards,” he said. “It may be easier dealing with Russia.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to Russia’s strikes by calling for a truce covering air and sea. “The first steps to establishing real peace should be forcing the sole source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. Moscow has rejected the idea of a temporary truce, which has also been proposed by Britain and France.
US aerospace company Maxar Technologies disabled Ukraine’s access to its satellite images after a request from the Trump administration. Maxar said it had contracts with the US government and dozens of allied and partner nations and “each customer makes their own decisions on how they use and share that data”.
Russian forces attacked the town of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine late on Friday, killing 11 people and injuring 30, the country’s emergency service said. Regional governor Vadym Filashki said on Telegram that Russian forces had launched three night-time strikes on the town north of Pokrovsk, a focal point of their advance through eastern Ukraine. According to initial information, four high-rise apartment buildings were damaged in the assault, he said. Emergency crews were at the site. Donetsk prosecutors said earlier that five residents of the region had been killed in Russian attacks on a string of towns and villages. One was killed in Pokrovsk and two others in villages near the city of Kostyantynivka, farther north-east, they said. One other victim was identified as a resident near the town of Kurakhove, which Russia’s military said it captured in January. Separately, one person was killed in a drone attack and seven others wounded early Saturday in the city of Bogodukhiv, said Kharkiv region military head Oleg Synegubov. In Ukraine’s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said a Russian drone attack had again damaged energy infrastructure and other targets.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s approval rating in Ukraine has risen by 10 percentage points since his White House spat with Donald Trump, a survey by a leading Ukrainian pollster showed on Friday. The poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology – conducted from 14 February to 4 March – found 67% of respondents trusted Zelenskyy in March, up from 57% a month earlier.
Iran’s foreign ministry denied accusations by Emmanuel Macron that Tehran had supplied equipment to Russia for use in the Ukraine war. Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei was quoted by state news agency Irna as saying the French president’s remarks were “baseless and false”.
