Ukraine troops are not encircled in Kursk despite Putins claims, intelligence reports say

Ukrainian soldiers have lost ground in Russia’s Kursk region, but they are not surrounded and at the mercy of Moscow despite claims by both Vladimir Putin and President Trump, according to US and European intelligence reports.The CIA and other intel agencies believe that Kyiv’s troops are not “encircled” by Russia — but they have lost nearly their entire foothold in the region in recent weeks, officials told Reuters.The new information echos The Post’s reporting earlier this month that Kyiv had prepared its forces to pull out of Kursk before Kremlin forces — backed by North Korean conscripts — swept in in full force.The assessment was also shared with the White House, contradicting Trump’s repeated claim that Ukrainian troops are surrounded as he urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to spare them.Putin has touted Moscow’s retaking of major Kursk settlements last week as a resounding success, undermining Ukraine’s surprise incursion that swept up hundreds of square miles of Russian land last summer.The Russian strongman called on the Kyiv soldiers to “surrender or die” as he claimed his troops had the Ukrainians in the palm of their hands.Experts have since slammed that assertion as grandstanding misinformation to help Moscow gain an edge in the peace talks with the US.Since Russia appears to be making no concessions in the peace talks, Putin hopes his “sparing” of the soldiers’ lives would be viewed as a compromise and increase his leverage, intelligence officials concluded.

The gambit appeared to work as just a day after Putin made his fake ultimatum, Trump took to social media to reiterate the Russian president’s claims that the Ukrainians were “completely surrounded.” A Kursk commander with whom The Post had embedded confirmed that his brigade had entirely withdrawn from the Russian territory the same day that Trump floated the rumor.The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based conflict monitor, concluded...