Speaking while dressed in fatigues, President Vladimir Putin says his main priority is to defeat Ukraine in the shortest time possible. It comes as a team from the United States heads to Moscow, expressing confidence that Russia will join a peace plan that is agreed to by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

BERLIN — Russia’s president, Vladimir 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.

As momentum builds for a ceasefire with Russia , Ukraine has all but lost a valuable bargaining chip. The Ukrainian army stunned Russia in August by attacking across the border and taking control of an estimated 1,