Putin Gets Big Battlefield As Russia Seems To Dismiss U.S. Ceasefire Proposal

Russia got a big battlefield win in its war with Ukraine, claiming it took control of the largest settlement in Kursk, the region taken over by Kyiv in its counter-offensive last year. The town in question is Sudzha.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the region on Thursday, likely to boost troop morale. "Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time frame, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region," Putin said.

The development comes as Moscow continues to make advances in the battlefield, especially in Kursk. Its upper hand is seemingly contributing to the country's reluctance to accept the U.S.'s proposed 30-day ceasefire, accepted by Ukraine in a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov told press the plan is "nothing else than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more." "Steps that imitate peaceful actions, it seems to me, are of no use to anyone," Ushakov added, saying he conveyed the country's position to U.S. national security adviser Mike Walz in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

Putin has said in the past that short-term ceasefires are not the way to end the war: "We don't need a truce, we need a long-term peace secured by guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens," he said in December, adding that "how to ensure these guarantees" was a "difficult question."

The Russian president said last June that in order to achieve peace Ukraine must officially drop any ambitions to join NATO and withdraw from the regions claimed by the country, which represent about a fifth of its territory. He is expected to give a press conference along with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko later on Thursday.

The war is also set to dominate conversations at a G7 gathering in Canada on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the town of Charlevoix and is expected to provide a brief on the state of negotiations.

President Donald Trump has voiced hope that U.S, negotiators in Moscow will be able to secure a ceasefire, with officials saying the United States wants Russia to agree to an unconditional halt to hostilities.