Putin claims Russian troops have surrounded 2 Ukrainian cities but
Ukraine says that's not true
[October 30, 2025]
By ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Wednesday
that Russian troops have surrounded Ukrainian forces in two key eastern
cities of Ukraine and offered to negotiate a deal for their surrender.
Ukrainian military officials vigorously denied the claim.
Putin, speaking at a meeting with wounded soldiers at a Moscow military
hospital, suggested that the Russian military was ready to open safe
corridors for Ukrainian and Western journalists to “let them see with
their own eyes what’s going on.”
He claimed Ukrainian troops are encircled in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian
stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region, and in Kupiansk, an important
rail junction in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Russia has recently been pushing its significant advantage in troops and
weapons at key points along the around 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front
line, almost four years after it invaded its neighbor.
But the Ukrainian armed forces said claims of Kupiansk being surrounded
are “fabrications and fantasies” while the spokesman for Ukraine’s
eastern forces, Hryhorii Shapoval, told The Associated Press that the
situation in Pokrovsk is “hard but under control.”
The Ukrainian Army’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps, which is defending
Pokrovsk, said Russia had deployed some 11,000 troops in a bid to
encircle the city. Some Russian units had managed to infiltrate Pokrovsk,
it acknowledged in a social media post.
Russian officials have in the past made claims about capturing Ukrainian
strongholds that have turned out not to be true. Independent
verification of the claims was not possible.
Putin’s comments coincided with his diplomatic efforts to persuade the
United States, which is seeking a peace deal to end the war, that
supporting Ukraine is pointless because it can’t hold out against
Russian military superiority. He has also stressed what he says is
Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from his
war aims.
Putin on Wednesday indicated that Russia is open for a deal for the
Ukrainian troops in the two cities to surrender. A media visit to the
areas would allow reporters to see “the condition the encircled
Ukrainian troops are there so that Ukraine’s political leadership could
make the relevant decisions regarding the fate of their citizens,” he
said.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, talks with Russian
servicemen who fought in Ukraine as he visits the Central Military
Clinical Hospital, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
(Vladimir Gerdo, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Small groups of Russian soldiers are engaging in house-to-house battles
in both Kupiansk and Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials and Russian war
bloggers have said, while artillery and drones target roads. The
Ukrainian military is increasingly relying on drones to supply troops.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said late
Tuesday that Russian forces had advanced in the Pokrovsk area but
“almost certainly do not currently control any positions within the city
of Pokrovsk itself.”
It added that the advances “are unlikely to cause an immediate collapse
of the Ukrainian pocket in the Pokrovsk direction.”
Asked about the situation in Kupiansk, the spokesman of Ukraine’s Joint
Forces Task Force, Viktor Trehubov, said Putin’s claim does not match
the reality on the ground. “To put it simply, there is no encirclement,”
Trehubov told The AP.
Russian forces have been trying for more than a year to take Pokrovsk,
which Ukraine stopped using as a logistical hub in the region as Russia
piled on the pressure at the end of last year. The city, which was home
to around 60,000 people before the war, is largely in ruins.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has kept up its long-range drone and missile attacks
on Russian rear areas in an effort to disrupt logistics by striking oil
refineries and manufacturing plants.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 100 Ukrainian
drones over five regions overnight, with 13 airports, including three in
the Moscow region, briefly suspending flights because of the attack.
Russia, in the meantime, continued its campaign against Ukraine’s power
grid and civilian infrastructure in at least six regions. At least 13
people, including a 9-year-old, were injured, officials said.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 126 strike and decoy drones
overnight.
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