Kyiv warns journalists against Putin’s offer to visit embattled Ukrainian cities

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has warned journalists against accepting an offer from Vladimir Putin to visit cities on the front line in eastern Ukraine, where he claims Russian forces have encircled Ukrainian troops.

On Thursday, Russia’s Defence Ministry announced that it had received an order from Putin to ensure safe passage for foreign reporters to visit “areas where Ukrainian troops are surrounded” in the front line cities Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in the partially occupied Donetsk region and Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region to the north.

The Russian leader had suggested a day earlier that Moscow should allow foreign journalists to visit the cities in question to allow them to “see with their own eyes what’s happening there”.

In its statement, the Defence Ministry said it was “ready, if necessary, to suspend hostilities for five to six hours in these areas, and also to provide safe corridors for the unhindered entry and exit of groups of foreign media representatives”.

It claimed that the offer also extended to Ukrainian reporters, provided that they agreed their visit in advance with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and that security guarantees were in place “for both the journalists and Russian military personnel”.

Writing on X after the announcement, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi said he did “not recommend that any reporters trust any of Putin’s proposals for ‘corridors’ in the warzone”.

“Putin’s only goal is to prolong the war. And he has never kept any of his ceasefire pledges. Do not assist him in justifying his crimes through Russian provocations against journalists”, Tykhyi wrote, adding that entering Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine without Kyiv’s permission was a violation of Ukrainian and international law that would carry “long-term reputational and legal consequences”.

While AFU Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi conceded the situation for Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad was “difficult” amid an intensifying Russian offensive, he insisted the Kremlin’s claims of AFU troops being encircled in either city or in Kupyansk did “not reflect reality”.

Military experts spoken to by Novaya Europe also said there was no evidence of Ukrainian troops being surrounded in any of the cities.

According to military analyst and former Security Service of Ukraine officer Ivan Stupak, although Russia has deployed some 11,000 troops to assault Pokrovsk, it has not yet managed to close the encirclement, and AFU troops could still withdraw with “minimal losses”.

In Kupyansk, meanwhile, the AFU maintains a 18-km-wide corridor to supply its troops defending the city and faces no threat of encirclement, Stupak said.

Political commentator Oleksandr Kovalenko told Novaya Europe that Moscow’s invitation to foreign journalists represented its “latest information stunt” and that it would use any pause in hostilities to regroup and resupply its forces.

Stupak agreed, concluding that the Kremlin’s “so-called humanitarian proposals, likely aimed at the White House, mask Russia’s desire to use a truce for its own benefit”.