Russia offers media safe passage to report on encircled Ukrainian troops
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country's military to guarantee safe passage to journalists who attempt to reach Ukrainian troops encircled on the conflict front line, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Thursday.
International and Ukrainian media would be able to witness and report on the situation at Krasnoarmeysk (also known as Pokrovsk), Dmitrov, and Kupyansk, during which time Russia is willing to pause hostilities for up to six hours and guarantee the media crews safe passage, the ministry stated.
The opportunity is conditional on Ukraine providing similar security guarantees to both visiting journalists and Russian troops.
Putin initially proposed the idea on Wednesday, days after the defense ministry announced that thousands of Ukrainian troops had been encircled on the front line.
He suggested that after receiving reliable information from the front line, Ukraine would be incentivized to negotiate an honorable surrender, similarly to how fighters at the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol laid down their arms in 2022.
“Groups of journalists could go inside those settlements, see what is going on there, talk to Ukrainian military service members and leave,” Putin said. “Our only concern is that there should be no Ukrainian provocations.”
Kiev has denied that its forces are encircled, claiming that Russia is overstating its battlefield successes.
The Ukrainian government has previously been accused of prolonging battles from disadvantageous positions instead of accepting requests for a retreat from frontline units. According to media reports, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky does not want to jeopardize aid from Western donors by bad publicity.
