After Trump appeal, Putin says he will spare Ukrainians in Kursk if they surrender

By Mark Trevelyan and Maxim Rodionov

(Reuters) -Russia will spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers in its western Kursk region if Kyiv tells them to surrender, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump urged him to avoid a "horrible massacre" there.

Ukraine denied its men were encircled, describing that as a Russian fabrication, but President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the situation "very difficult".

Trump, in a social media post, said he had asked the Russian president to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainians who he said were "completely surrounded" and vulnerable.

"I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II," he said.

Putin, addressing his Security Council, said he had read Trump's appeal. While accusing Ukrainian troops of carrying out crimes against civilians that he said amounted to "terrorism" - something Kyiv denies - Putin said he understood the call by Trump to take humanitarian considerations into account.

"In this regard, I would like to emphasize that if (the Ukrainian troops) lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and decent treatment in accordance with international law and the laws of the Russian Federation," Putin said.

"To effectively implement the appeal of the U.S. president, a corresponding order from the military-political leadership of Ukraine is needed for its military units to lay down their arms and surrender."

The deputy chairman of Russia's security council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, posted on social media that the flipside for Kyiv was that "if they refuse to lay down their arms, they will all be methodically and mercilessly destroyed".

COUNTER-INVASION

Kursk became a key theatre of the war last August when Ukraine, 2-1/2 years after Putin's full-scale invasion, turned the tables on Moscow by grabbing a piece of Russia's own territory.

Seven months on, it is once again in the spotlight, as Russian forces attempt to flush out the last remaining Ukrainians and the U.S. urges Russia to agree to a ceasefire in the wider war. Putin said on Thursday the Ukrainians were trapped and facing a choice of "surrender or die".

Ukraine's general staff said on Friday: "Reports of the alleged 'encirclement' of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners."

It said there had been 13 combat clashes on Friday and the battlefield situation was largely unchanged.

"Units of the Defence Forces of Ukraine have successfully regrouped, withdrawn to more advantageous defensive positions, and are executing their assigned tasks within the Kursk region."

Zelenskiy told reporters that the Kursk offensive had succeeded in diverting Russian forces from elsewhere on the battlefront.

"I can only thank our warriors for the Kursk operation. I believe it fulfilled its task," Zelenskiy said.

Earlier the Russian defence ministry said Russian troops had retaken Goncharovka, one of only a handful of Kursk settlements still in Ukrainian hands.

Ukraine's border guard service said it repelled an attempt by a 10-person Russian reconnaissance group to break into Ukrainian territory in Sumy region, which borders Kursk.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Maxim Rodionov in London, Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk and Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv; Editing by Alex Richardson)