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.

Russia said on Thursday there was no doubt that its troops would soon complete the task of clearing out Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk region where they have held a pocket of territory for more than seven months.