Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that Russia will guarantee the safety of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region if they surrender, world agencies reported, quoted by BTA.
In a speech to the Russian Security Council, Putin stressed that the Ukrainian authorities must instruct their military to lay down their arms.
Today, US President Donald Trump called on Putin to spare Ukrainian soldiers who are being pushed out of Russia's Kursk region. He also said that there is a "very good chance" the war to end, Reuters recalls.
Putin then said: “If they lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and dignified treatment in accordance with the norms of international law and the laws of the Russian Federation“, reported Agence France-Presse.
Putin added that he had hung the message from the US president, in which he called for the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, who, according to him, are completely surrounded by the Russian army, to be spared. Kiev, in turn, denied Trump's claim of such an encirclement. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the situation as complicated.
Putin said that Ukrainian soldiers had committed many crimes against the civilian population in the Kursk region, where they had occupied several hundred square kilometers since August 2024, and again compared them to terrorists. But he added that Russia was listening to Trump's call regarding the Ukrainian soldiers there.