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.

Putin made his visit after Washington asked him to consider a 30-day ceasefire proposal backed by Ukraine, and after Russian forces retook a swath of territory in Kursk, forcing Ukrainian troops to fall back and cede control of the town of Sudzha.

Ukraine's top army commander said on Wednesday that Kyiv's troops will keep operating in Russia's Kursk region as long as needed and that fighting continued in and around the town of Sudzha. "Despite the increased pressure of the Russian and North Korean army,

After clinging for more than seven months to a gradually shrinking area, Ukraine has seen its position worsen sharply in the past week.