President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Russia’s occupied Kursk region on Wednesday, as the Kremlin considers a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with his troops closing in on Ukraine’s only territorial bargaining chip.

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.

The Ukrainian front in the Russian province of Kursk is at risk of collapsing after days of intensive Russian assaults were aided by a Russian surprise attack through a gas pipeline. Seven months after Ukrainian forces seized roughly 386 square miles of Russian territory,