A few miles behind the front line with Ukraine, there are clear signs that the fighting remains fierce in Russia’s southwestern Kursk Oblast as negotiations go on to end the three-year war.
On Monday, NBC News saw two trucks carry a pair of American Bradley Fighting Vehicles — a tank-like workhorse used to carry troops into battle — left by retreating Ukrainian forces. Another three trucks carried the bodies of Russian soldiers and many more were transporting the injured away from the battlefield in the heavily militarized region.
Russia's Kommersant newspaper also ran a large picture of President Donald Trump, who said late Sunday that negotiators in Washington and Moscow have begun discussing the division of assets between Russia and Ukraine in an effort to end the fighting.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and that they would discuss “dividing up certain assets,” including land and power plants.
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“I think we have a lot of it already discussed by both sides — Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said. “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed the planned call between the two leaders during a press briefing Monday, but provided no further details.
In the talks expected to get underway Tuesday, Trump will attempt to win Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the U.S. and Ukraine after their delegates met in Saudi Arabia last week. Putin said they needed to meet crucial demands made by the Kremlin.
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The Russian leader and his officials have repeatedly indicated that they want to cement his country's land grabs during the war and stop Kyiv from ever joining NATO.
Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko reiterated those goals Monday, telling the Russian outlet Izvestia that the Kremlin will seek “iron-clad security guarantees” to ensure Kyiv’s exclusion from NATO in any peace deal and Ukraine’s neutrality regarding the bloc.
Pressure has been mounting on Russia to cede to Trump's demands after Ukraine accepted the ceasefire proposal last week, though Grushko's comments Monday made no reference to it.
Grushko also said that Russia would oppose any troops in Ukraine as part of post-conflict guarantees, including NATO troops, with Britain and France both saying in recent weeks that they are willing to send forces to monitor any ceasefire.
“If [those soldiers] appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict,” he added.
However, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Monday that the stipulations the Russians have given show that they “don’t really want peace, actually, because they are presenting as conditions all their ultimate goals that they want to achieve from the war,” according to Reuters.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also told reporters that a “significant number” of European countries were willing to provide peacekeeping troops in Ukraine as part of a peace deal, according to Reuters.
The comments came after heavy fighting in Kursk over the weekend as Russian forces continued to slowly take territory in the region where Ukrainian forces have maintained a foothold for the past seven months.
The Ukrainian government sees Kursk as a valuable bargaining chip in any peace talks, but in recent weeks, it has been forced to retreat from parts of the region.
New images shown on Russian government channels over the weekend displayed an intensified military offensive by the country's forces, bolstered by support from North Korean troops and the Trump administration's temporary suspension of military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv.
Even as Trump has attempted to play peacemaker, saying on Truth Social Friday that he had asked the Kremlin not to attack Ukrainian troops in Kursk, Putin has urged his troops on, appearing in military fatigues during a visit to the region last week.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said Monday that its forces destroyed 72 Ukrainian drones overnight and took control of the southern village of Stepove in southeastern Ukraine.
In Moscow, a vocal minority of ultra-nationalists has urged Putin not to agree to a truce, calling it "a trap" and warning that the plan would give Ukraine time to regroup.
Last week, Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov called the ceasefire proposal “nothing else than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more.”
That came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of prolonging the war and ignoring U.S.-led efforts to broker a ceasefire.
“The buildup of Russian forces indicates that Moscow intends to keep ignoring diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday.
“We are ready to provide our partners with all the real information on the situation at the front, in the Kursk region and along our border,” he added.
Keir Simmons reported from Rylsk and Astha Rajvanshi from London.
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