Mr. Trump said Russia's military stance is very strong.

According to TASS news agency on March 15, US President Donald Trump said that the Russian Armed Forces are taking the initiative against the surrounded units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.

“The Russian Armed Forces are in a very strong position, militarily, and they have pretty much surrounded the Ukrainians. But I hope nothing happens to them. I have asked Russia not to let anything happen,” President Donald Trump told reporters on March 14 (Washington time) at Andrews military base, before flying to Florida.

Mr. Trump stressed that he was "very concerned about the situation on the battlefield."

“There is a very vulnerable group of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, they are really surrounded, and that is not good, because we don’t want them to die. There have been enough deaths. We’ll see what happens,” the US leader said.

President Trump said that discussions with Russia on a ceasefire are going "difficult" but the US is getting a good response from Moscow, because "there is still a long way to go".

Commenting on the start of the conflict in Ukraine, President Trump said “you don’t go to war with someone who is much bigger than you.”

“Former President Joe Biden should not have let this happen,” Mr. Trump said. “First of all, you don’t bully people who are much older than you.”

He stressed that Kiev did not receive support from "large" amounts of money and significant military supplies from the United States.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had read the US leader's appeal to spare the lives of Ukrainian servicemen stopped by Russian troops in Russia's Kursk region, where the Ukrainian army has been conducting an incursion since August 2024. In this regard, the Russian leader reiterated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces committed crimes against civilians in the Kursk region, "classified by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office as terrorism."