Zelensky Accuses Russia of Trying to Trap Ukraine’s Forces Amid Cease-Fire Talks

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of trying to surround Kyiv’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region to improve his position amid cease-fire talks with Washington, but said that Ukraine’s forces had not been trapped.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces had retaken two villages outside Sudzha, the main Russian town that Ukraine occupied in the Kursk region. The Ukrainian general staff has not publicly commented on Russia’s capture of Sudzha. But on Saturday morning, it released a map of the battlefield showing the town outside Ukrainian-controlled territory in the Kursk region.

Fighting is raging in and around the part of the Kursk region that Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive into Russian territory last summer. The Kremlin is pressing an advancing offensive to take back its land there, while prolonging negotiations over a cease-fire that Washington and Kyiv proposed this week.

Mr. Putin on Friday called on Ukrainian forces still fighting in the Kursk region to lay down their arms and said he would spare their lives if they surrendered. He also said Ukrainian forces were encircled there, an assertion that President Trump repeated in a message on Truth Social.

Mr. Zelensky, speaking to journalists in Kyiv, called the claim untrue.

“There are Ukrainian troops in Kursk region,” he said. “Their encirclement is Putin’s lie.”

Russia’s forces, however, are attempting to cut off and trap Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region by pushing into the neighboring Sumy region in Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky said, adding that Kyiv was countering the threat.