Ukraine’s military was forced to dismiss Donald Trump’s claim that thousands of its troops are encircled in Russia’s Kursk region as “false”.Its general staff instead accused Russia of fabricating reports for “political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners”, while Volodymyr Zelensky said Vladimir Putin was lying about the battlefield situation.Putin claimed on Thursday night that his forces had encircled thousands of Ukrainians in the western Kursk region, which Ukraine invaded in August, warning they would have to “surrender or die”.