MOSCOW: US negotiators travelled to Russia on Thursday to present their plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but Moscow warned in advance it would refuse any temporary deal that gave Kyiv a “breather”.

Ukraine agreed to the plan during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, as US President Donald Trump pushes for a speedy end to the more than three-year conflict. Russia has been grinding forward on the battlefield for over a year, claiming on Thursday to have driven Ukraine from the town of Sudzha in its Kursk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely give his assessment of the US and Ukrainian-backed proposal later on Thursday, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.

A plane linked to Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff landed earlier at Vnukovo-2, a Moscow airport terminal often used to receive foreign dignitaries, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia meanwhile claimed rapid advances in the Kursk region — where Kyiv launched a cross-border assault last August. The Russian defense ministry said it had “liberated” Sudzha along with two other settlements in the border region. Sudzha, home to around 5,000 people before the fighting, was the largest settlement Kyiv seized after it launched its shock assault into Russia.

The Kursk region was one of Kyiv’s few bargaining chips in swapping land with Russia, which has occupied around a fifth of Ukraine since it took Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale assault in February 2022. Ukraine now risks losing its grip on the border region entirely, ceding dozens of square kilometres in the past seven days, according to military bloggers. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief hinted late Wednesday some of its troops were pulling back in the region. Putin visited the region on Wednesday for the first time since Ukraine launched its incursion. Dressed in battle fatigues, he expressed hope his army would “fully liberate” areas under Kyiv’s control. — AFP