MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don that is overseeing the Ukraine offensive, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Putin “has visited the Russian armed forces headquarters in Rostov-on-Don on his way back from Perm,” a city in the Urals where he spent Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Army chief of staff Valery Gerasimov met with Putin to update him on the state of the Ukraine offensive, which Russia launched in February, 2022.

The meeting came after Ukraine’s announcement on Tuesday that it had for the first time used US-supplied ATACMS long-range missiles in the conflict.

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Putin said the following day that the weapons, which have a range of 165 kilometres (103 miles) would have no influence on the war and would only prolong Ukraine’s “agony”.