President Trump said on Friday that the United States had “very good and productive” discussions with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about a potential cease-fire in Ukraine, as both the Kremlin and White House signaled negotiations were moving forward despite the raft of concessions Moscow appears to be seeking.
The remarks on Mr. Trump’s social media site came after the Russian leader met with Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, in Moscow, late Thursday. Top officials at both the White House and the Kremlin said that the meeting left them with “cautious optimism.”
“We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday,” Mr. Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social platform, in an apparent reference to the meeting with Mr. Witkoff. “There is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end.”
But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine questioned whether Russia was acting in good faith, pointing out that his country had already agreed to a 30-day truce after a meeting with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia this week.
“The world sees how Russia is deliberately setting conditions that only complicate and drag out the process,” Mr. Zelensky said Friday on social media. “Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump had directly spoken to each other. The Kremlin said earlier Friday that Mr. Putin, in his meeting with Mr. Witkoff, “passed along information and additional signals for President Trump.” It also said that Mr. Putin expected to talk to Mr. Trump but that the call had yet to be scheduled.
In Friday’s Truth Social post, Mr. Trump also said thousands of Ukrainian troops were “completely surrounded by the Russian military.” That appeared to be a reference to Russian claims that Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded in the Kursk region of Russia — claims that have been challenged by independent analysts and that Ukraine’s military officials again rejected on Friday.
“There is no threat of encirclement of our units,” the Ukrainian military’s general staff said in a statement, calling such reports “false and fabricated by the Russians.”
What happens next in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces stunned Russian forces with a cross-border incursion last summer, is emerging as a key point of contention ahead of a potential cease-fire. Mr. Putin on Thursday had suggested that he wanted Ukraine to order its soldiers there to surrender as part of any cease-fire deal, signaling that Russia wouldn’t let them peacefully withdraw.
“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Battles have been raging in Kursk as Moscow’s forces push to drive Ukrainian troops from the small patch of land they seized over the summer. Russian troops have advanced in recent days, with Mr. Putin urging them to finish the job “in the shortest possible time.”
“The situation is bad, almost critical,” said a Ukrainian soldier fighting in Kursk who was reached by phone on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the current situation on the battlefield. But it was not as bad as Mr. Trump described in his post, the soldier added.
The Ukrainian authorities on Friday ordered several villages in the Sumy region, across the border from Kursk, to evacuate amid increased attacks and fears that the fighting could spill over.
“Aerial attacks — such as glide bombs and drones — have intensified in the border areas,” Volodymyr Artiukhin, the Ukrainian head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, said on Facebook. He announced the mandatory evacuation on Friday of eight villages, affecting 543 residents.
Driving Ukrainian troops out of Kursk would deny Mr. Zelensky a significant bargaining chip in any negotiations. And before the meeting with Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Putin showed on Thursday that he was in no hurry to accept the offer of a 30-day truce made by Ukraine and the United States this week — telling a news conference that he was open to the proposal, but suggested that he would seek to negotiate over a slew of issues, such as Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, that could delay or derail any deal.
But Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, suggested on Friday that the outcome of the diplomatic back-and-forth would only become clear after Mr. Witkoff had briefed Mr. Trump and after the Russian and American leaders had spoken by phone. The two leaders are last known to have spoken on Feb. 12.
Mr. Witkoff, who is officially the president’s Middle East envoy, has also taken on a key role as an interlocutor with Russia — spending three hours meeting with Mr. Putin last month as he finalized a prisoner exchange.
“After Mr. Witkoff passes along all of the information he received in Moscow to his head of state — we’ll determine the timing of the conversation after that,” Mr. Peskov said. “There’s an understanding on both sides that such a conversation is necessary.”
Mr. Peskov’s comments were the latest indication that Mr. Putin is likely trying to balance a desire to avoid upsetting Mr. Trump with his effort to force wide-ranging concessions from the West and from Ukraine. While Mr. Trump says he wants to end the war as quickly as possible, Mr. Putin appears confident that he has time on his side and that an unconditional cease-fire would benefit Ukraine.
Officials in Kyiv have argued that Mr. Putin is now simply trying to drag out negotiations while he continues fighting and has no plans to make concessions that could bring about a durable peace.
“Ukraine seeks an end to the war,” the country’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, posted on X on Friday. “Putin seeks to continue the war. The rest of his words are just a smoke-screen.”
But Mr. Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, told Fox News on Thursday night that the White House had “some cautious optimism” about the prospects for a cease-fire. Referring to Mr. Putin’s news conference on Thursday, Mr. Waltz said, “Of course, both sides are going to have their demands, and of course both sides are going to have to make some compromises.”
Marc Santora contributed reporting from Dnipro, Ukraine.
