KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Wednesday that Russian troops have surrounded Ukrainian forces in two key eastern cities of Ukraine and offered to negotiate a deal for their surrender. Ukrainian military officials vigorously denied the claim. Putin, speaking at a meeting with wounded soldiers at a Moscow military hospital, suggested that the Russian military was ready to open safe corridors for Ukrainian and Western journalists to “let them see with their own eyes what’s going on.”

He claimed Ukrainian troops are encircled in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region, and in Kupiansk, an important rail junction in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Russia has recently been pushing its significant advantage in troops and weapons at key points along the around 600-mile front line, almost four years after it invaded its neighbor.

But the Ukrainian armed forces said claims of Kupiansk being surrounded are “fabrications and fantasies” while the spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces, Hryhorii Shapoval, told The Associated Press that the situation in Pokrovsk is “hard but under control.”

The Ukrainian Army’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps, which is defending Pokrovsk, said Russia had deployed some 11,000 troops in a bid to encircle the city. Some Russian units had managed to infiltrate Pokrovsk, it acknowledged in a social media post. Russian officials have in the past made claims about capturing Ukrainian strongholds that have turned out not to be true. Independent verification of the claims was not possible.

Putin’s comments coincided with his diplomatic efforts to persuade the United States, which is seeking a peace deal to end the war, that supporting Ukraine is pointless because it can’t hold out against Russian military superiority. He has also stressed what he says is Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from his war aims.

Putin on Wednesday indicated that Russia is open for a deal for the Ukrainian troops in the two cities to surrender. A media visit to the areas would allow reporters to see “the condition the encircled Ukrainian troops are there so that Ukraine’s political leadership could make the relevant decisions regarding the fate of their citizens,” he said.