Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in fatigues, visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region.

President Vladimir Putin has visited the western Russian region of Kursk for the first time since Ukrainian forces seized some territory in the region, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.

By signaling its openness to a ceasefire, Ukraine has handed the Kremlin a difficult challenge at a time when the Russian military has the upper hand in the war: Should Moscow accept a truce and abandon hopes of making new gains,

Kyiv has seized the diplomatic initiative but Russia retains the advantage on the battlefield, having chewed through Ukrainian land.

After the US administration pushed Ukraine to agree to a potential ceasefire deal that would halt the fighting in the war for 30 days, Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State who led the negotiations,