Russian operation in Kursk is in closing stage, Kremlin claims, as US negotiators head to Moscow
Russia’s operation to eject Ukrainian forces from the western Russian area of Kursk has entered its closing stage, state information company Tass reported on Thursday, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday visited Kursk for the primary time since Ukrainian forces seized some territory within the area.
The information comes as US president Donald Trump stated on Wednesday that negotiators had been headed to Russia “proper now” for talks on a doable ceasefire with Ukraine, after Kyiv agreed to a 30-day truce.
Trump didn’t give additional particulars, however the White Home later stated that his particular envoy Steve Witkoff was going to Moscow later this week.
Trump wouldn’t say when he would subsequent communicate to Putin, however added that “I hope he’s going to have a ceasefire.” “It’s as much as Russia now,” stated the US president.
Ukraine is more and more struggling on the battlefield, dropping floor within the east and south of the nation, the place officers stated eight folks had been killed on Wednesday.
Russia has additionally reclaimed territory in its western Kursk area, pushing again Ukrainian troops who staged a shock offensive final August.
Putin was proven on Russian tv visiting troops in Kursk on Wednesday.
“I’m relying on the truth that all of the fight duties going through our models shall be fulfilled, and the territory of the Kursk area will quickly be utterly liberated from the enemy,” Putin stated.
Russian chief of employees Gen Valery Gerasimov stated that 430 Ukrainian troops had been captured and Putin known as them “terrorists.”
Ukraine navy commander-in-chief Gen Oleksandr Syrsky indicated that some forces in Kursk had been pulling again to “extra favorable positions.”
Key occasions
Italy’s Campi Flegrei hit by 4.4-magnitude earthquake
Lorenzo Tondo
International correspondent
Italy’s Campi Flegrei, a extremely seismic space close to Naples, subsequent door to the supervolcano Vesuvius, was rocked by a 4.4-magnitude earthquake within the early hours of Thursday.
The in a single day’s tremor reached the identical depth because the one recorded on 20 Could 2024, which was thought-about the strongest within the final 40 years.
After the primary earthquake tremor, six milder ones adopted.
Firefighters intervened within the Bagnoli district, the place a ceiling collapsed inside an residence and one particular person was trapped inside. Inspections on the buildings are nonetheless beneath method.
Many individuals had been trapped of their houses and needed to exit by way of the home windows. Alongside the road, quite a few piles of rubble and a number of other automotive windshields had been shattered. Harm was recorded to the bell tower of the Church of Sant’Anna. Faculties will stay closed right now. Many individuals poured out into the streets in panic. Some even tried to enter the previous Nato base to hunt safety. Movies are circulating that present the collapse of a ceiling.
The Phlegraean Fields, the place about 5 hundred thousand folks reside, have been in a state of unrest (volcanic agitation) for years. Since 2012, the Grandi Rischi fee has decided that the alert stage needs to be raised from inexperienced to yellow primarily based on recorded parameters: a rise in tremors and emissions, and floor uplift. In response to volcanologists, the Phlegraean Fields are extra harmful than a possible eruption of Vesuvius.
The 7-mile Campi Flegrei caldera is a a lot bigger volcano than the close by, cone-shaped Vesuvius, which destroyed the traditional Roman metropolis of Pompeii in AD79, and is way more lively.
The supervolcano has been in a stressed state for greater than 70 years because of a phenomenon often called bradyseism, which scientists perceive to be the gradual motion of a part of Earth’s floor attributable to the filling or emptying of an underground magma chamber or hydrothermal exercise. The final time Campi Flegrei had a comparable burst of earthquakes was within the early Nineteen Eighties.
Campi Flegrei was fashioned 39,000 years in the past after an eruption emptied it of magma. Its final important eruption was in 1538.
Morning opening: What do you assume, Mr Putin?
Jakub Krupa
Ukraine, Europe and the US maintain their breath as they anticipate Russian president Vladimir Putin’s verdict on the US-led ceasefire proposal, already accepted by Ukraine, which may pause the hostilities for 30 days and doubtlessly pave the best way to a extra complete peace settlement.
Yesterday, the Russian president targeted on projecting energy and energy as an alternative, as he donned navy camouflage and expressed hope his military was on the point of “totally liberating” the territory, and informed senior commanders that Ukrainian troopers captured in Kursk needs to be handled as terrorists.
Donald Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff shall be in Moscow right now, with studies that he might be assembly with Putin to debrief him on conversations with Ukraine and to hunt his reply to the plan. His airplane has just crossed into Russia from Latvia, and we are going to keep watch over this.
In the meantime, European international locations proceed coordinating for a “coalition of the prepared” that would present some safety ensures required to assist any peace association, a short lived or a everlasting one.
Final evening in Paris, there was a way of urgency amongst European defence ministers, with French armed forces minister Sébastien Lecornu confirming that about 15 international locations had expressed curiosity in becoming a member of. This morning, president Emmanuel Macron shall be internet hosting senior French authorities figures to debate what’s subsequent.
Nato’s secretary normal Mark Rutte, dubbed by some because the Trump whisperer, shall be in Washington to speak with the US president.
Individually, we shall be additionally taking a look at occasions in Germany with a particular Bundestag seating on the incoming authorities’s plans to reform the constitutional debt break provision. The negotiations on what could be finished right here had been nonetheless happening late final evening, so let’s see in the event that they discovered a method ahead. Presumed subsequent chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is about to talk, after all.
Appears to be like like a busy day forward for us, so let’s get cracking.
It’s Thursday, 13 March 2025, and that is Europe reside. It’s Jakub Krupa right here.
Good morning.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, studies that Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, and partially occupied Zaporizhzhia had been the Ukrainian areas that suffered in a single day Russian assaults. Ukraine’s navy has claimed it shot down 74 of 117 drones in a single day, and that Russia additionally launched an Iskander-M missile.
Russian media studies that Alexander Lukashenko, the chief of Belarus, has arrived in Moscow.
Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB) claims that it has prevented a collection of assaults in opposition to navy and civil servants, the Interfax information company studies. This might not be independently verified by the Guardian.
In response to the FSB, “Ukrainian particular companies” deliberate to ship explosive units in parcels by mail.
Russia says it downed 77 Ukrainian drones in a single day
Russia downed 77 Ukrainian drones in a single day, its defence ministry stated Thursday, two days after Kyiv carried out its largest direct strike on Moscow in the course of the three-year conflict.
Thirty drones had been intercepted and destroyed over the western Bryansk area bordering Ukraine whereas 25 extra had been downed over Kaluga, the ministry stated in a press release.
Extra drones had been intercepted over the areas of Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov and Belgorod, it added.
The most recent barrage comes after Russia downed greater than 90 drones within the capital area on Tuesday. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin known as it the “most huge enemy drone assault on Moscow”.
Russia stated three folks died and a number of other extra had been injured in Tuesday’s assault, which noticed it intercept 337 Ukrainian drones throughout the nation.
A number of Ukrainian cities had been additionally beneath assault Thursday morning, with a 42-year-old lady killed in Kherson, based on regional navy administration head Roman Mrochko.
Authorities in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk additionally reported coming beneath assault early Thursday.
Extra now on the newest from Kursk.
Some background: Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border on 6 August and grabbed land inside Russia in a bid to distract Moscow’s forces from the frontlines in jap Ukraine and to achieve a possible bargaining chip.
However a lightning Russian advance over the previous few days has left Ukraine with a sliver of lower than 200 sq. km (77 sq. miles) in Kursk, down from 1,300 sq. km (500 sq. miles) on the peak of the incursion final summer season, based on the Russian navy.
“Our job within the close to future, within the shortest doable timeframe, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched within the Kursk area,” Putin informed generals in remarks televised late on Wednesday.
“And naturally, we want to consider making a safety zone alongside the state border.”
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s Normal Employees, informed Putin that Russian forces had pushed Ukrainian forces out of over 86% of the territory that they had as soon as held in Kursk, the equal to 1,100 sq. km (425 sq. miles) of land, Reuters studies.
Gerasimov stated Ukraine’s plans to make use of Kursk as a bargaining chip in doable future negotiations with Russia had failed and its gambit that its Kursk operation would pressure Russia to divert troops from its advance in jap Ukraine had additionally not labored.
He stated Russian forces had retaken 24 settlements and 259 sq. km (100 sq. miles) of land from Ukrainian forces within the final 5 days together with over 400 prisoners.
Russia’s operation to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk has entered its closing stage, state information company TASS reported on Thursday citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
Ukraine’s prime military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, stated on Wednesday that Kyiv’s troops will hold working in Kursk so long as wanted and that combating continued in and across the city of Sudzha.
The US on Tuesday agreed to renew weapons provides and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv stated at talks in Saudi Arabia that it was able to assist a ceasefire proposal.
The Kremlin on Wednesday stated it was rigorously learning the outcomes of that assembly and awaited particulars from the US.
G7 ministers to fulfill in Canada on Thursday
International ministers of main western democracies will meet in Canada on Thursday after seven weeks of rising tensions between Trump and US allies over his upending of overseas coverage on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs.
The Group of Seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA, together with the EU, meet within the distant vacationer city of La Malbaie, nestled within the Quebec hills for 2 days of conferences that previously have broadly been consensual on the problems they face.
Prime of the agenda for Washington’s companions shall be getting a debriefing on US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s talks on Tuesday with Kyiv in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the place Ukraine stated it was able to assist a 30-day ceasefire deal.
However within the run-up to the primary G7 assembly of Canada’s presidency, the crafting of an agreed all-encompassing closing assertion has been robust, Reuters studies:
A US choice to impose 25% tariffs on all metal and aluminium imports instantly drew reciprocal measures from Canada and the EU, underscoring the tensions.
Washington has sought to impose purple traces on language round Ukraine and opposed a separate declaration on curbing Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a murky delivery community that eludes sanctions, whereas demanding extra sturdy language on China.
On Monday, Rubio cautioned that Washington didn’t need language that would hurt efforts to carry Russia and Ukraine to the desk. Chatting with reporters on Wednesday he stated a superb G7 assertion would recognise that the USA has moved the method to finish the conflict ahead.
G7 diplomats stated the optimistic consequence from Jeddah could no less than ease talks on Ukraine.
America, since Trump’s return to workplace on 20 January, has taken a less-friendly stance on Ukraine, pushing for a fast deal to finish the conflict, demanded European companions tackle extra of the burden with out brazenly endorsing their position in future talks, and warmed Washington’s ties with Moscow.
Poland requires US to switch nuclear weapons to its territory as a deterrent – report
Poland’s president has known as on the US to switch nuclear weapons to its territory as a deterrent in opposition to future Russian aggression, a proposal he stated he not too long ago mentioned with Trump’s particular envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, the Monetary Occasions reported on Thursday.
“The borders of Nato moved east in 1999, so 26 years later there must also be a shift of the Nato infrastructure east. For me that is apparent,” the FT cited Andrzej Duda as saying in an interview.
It could be safer if these weapons had been already within the nation, Duda stated.
A number of Ukrainian cities beneath assault Thursday morning, one killed in Kherson
A number of Ukrainian cities had been additionally beneath assault Thursday morning, with a 42-year-old lady killed in Kherson, based on regional navy administration head Roman Mrochko.
Authorities in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk additionally reported coming beneath assault.
Russian operation in Kursk is in closing stage, Kremlin claims, as US negotiators head to Moscow
Russia’s operation to eject Ukrainian forces from the western Russian area of Kursk has entered its closing stage, state information company Tass reported on Thursday, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday visited Kursk for the primary time since Ukrainian forces seized some territory within the area.
The information comes as US president Donald Trump stated on Wednesday that negotiators had been headed to Russia “proper now” for talks on a doable ceasefire with Ukraine, after Kyiv agreed to a 30-day truce.
Trump didn’t give additional particulars, however the White Home later stated that his particular envoy Steve Witkoff was going to Moscow later this week.
Trump wouldn’t say when he would subsequent communicate to Putin, however added that “I hope he’s going to have a ceasefire.” “It’s as much as Russia now,” stated the US president.
Ukraine is more and more struggling on the battlefield, dropping floor within the east and south of the nation, the place officers stated eight folks had been killed on Wednesday.
Russia has additionally reclaimed territory in its western Kursk area, pushing again Ukrainian troops who staged a shock offensive final August.
Putin was proven on Russian tv visiting troops in Kursk on Wednesday.
“I’m relying on the truth that all of the fight duties going through our models shall be fulfilled, and the territory of the Kursk area will quickly be utterly liberated from the enemy,” Putin stated.
Russian chief of employees Gen Valery Gerasimov stated that 430 Ukrainian troops had been captured and Putin known as them “terrorists.”
Ukraine navy commander-in-chief Gen Oleksandr Syrsky indicated that some forces in Kursk had been pulling again to “extra favorable positions.”
Opening abstract
Russia’s operation to eject Ukrainian forces from the western Russian area of Kursk has entered its closing stage, state information company Tass reported on Thursday, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday visited Kursk for the primary time since Ukrainian forces seized some territory within the area.
The information comes as US president Donald Trump stated on Wednesday that negotiators had been headed to Russia “proper now” for talks on a doable ceasefire with Ukraine, after Kyiv agreed to a 30-day truce.
Trump didn’t give additional particulars, however the White Home later stated that his particular envoy Steve Witkoff was going to Moscow later this week.
Trump wouldn’t say when he would subsequent communicate to Putin, however added that “I hope he’s going to have a ceasefire.” “It’s as much as Russia now,” stated the US president.
Listed below are the opposite key latest developments:
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Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, urged his troops had been pulling again to minimise losses in Kursk. “In probably the most troublesome scenario, my precedence has been and stays saving the lives of Ukrainian troopers. To this finish, the models of the defence forces, if mandatory, manoeuvre to extra beneficial positions,” Syrski posted on-line, in phrases usually used to explain a withdrawal.
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Syrskyi stated the Russian navy was struggling big personnel and tools losses whereas making an attempt to attain “political positive factors” by trying to oust Ukrainian troops. Sudzha is the most important settlement that Ukraine seized in Kursk, and the Ukraine-based Deep State open-source mapping venture confirmed earlier on Wednesday that Kyiv was now not in full management of it. “The enemy is utilizing assault models of airborne troops and particular operations forces to interrupt by way of our defences, oust our troops out of the Kursk area and transfer combating to the territory of Sumy and Kharkiv areas,” Syrskyi stated.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Kyiv was doing “as a lot as doable” to guard its troopers. “The Russians are clearly making an attempt to place most stress on our troops, and our navy command is doing what it has to do,” the Ukrainian president informed a press convention in Kyiv. “We’re preserving the lives of our troopers as a lot as doable.”
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Donald Trump suggested he could target Russia financially as Ukraine’s president urged him to take robust steps if Moscow did not assist a 30-day ceasefire agreed between Ukrainian and US delegations assembly in Saudi Arabia. Washington, Kyiv and Europe are ready for Moscow’s response to the proposal, and US envoys are anticipated to carry talks with Putin by the top of the week. The Kremlin has not publicly stated whether or not or not it helps an instantaneous ceasefire. If Putin refuses, Trump stated he may “do issues financially that might be very unhealthy for Russia”.
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Zelenskyy stated he anticipated robust measures from the Washington if Russia rejected the ceasefire proposal. “I perceive that we are able to rely on robust steps. I don’t know the small print but however we’re speaking about sanctions [against Russia] and strengthening Ukraine.”
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The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stated Washington needed Moscow’s settlement with no strings connected. “That’s what we wish to know – in the event that they’re ready to do it unconditionally,” Rubio stated on a airplane heading to a G7 assembly in Canada. “If the response is sure, then we all know we’ve made actual progress, and there’s an actual probability of peace. If their response isn’t any, it might be extremely unlucky, and it’ll make their intentions clear.”
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The US threats got here because the French defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, informed a press convention in Paris {that a} ceasefire announcement may come as quickly as Thursday and that Europe must be ready to assist implement it. Defence ministers from Europe’s 5 main navy powers – the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and France – met within the French capital on Wednesday to debate the formation of a “reassurance pressure” that might assure peace in Ukraine if a settlement was agreed. Lecornu stated they had been “hoping to see a ceasefire tomorrow” and that 15 international locations had been prepared to contribute to a pressure of as much as 30,000 personnel that might completely safe Ukraine’s airports, ports and infrastructure.
