Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the headquarters of two troop units who fight in the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Luganskannexed by Russia last September, where he has been interested in the situation on the southern and eastern fronts.

“The Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation visited the headquarters of the Dnieper group in the Kherson direction,” the Russian Presidency said in a brief statement published on its website about the Putin’s first visit to the head of this region in almost 14 months of military campaign in Ukraine.

Shortly after, the Kremlin also reported Putin’s visit to the “headquarters of the ‘Vostok’ (East) unit of the National Guard in the Lugansk People’s Republic.” It is also the first trip of the president to this Ukrainian province.

According to the Kremlin, at the headquarters of the Dnieper group, the Russian president has listened to the reports of the commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinski, the commander of this group of forces, Colonel General Oleg Makarevich, and other military leaders.

The Kremlin assures that the trips “have not been prepared”

According to the official ‘TASS’ agency, the head of the Kremlin has asked information about the situation in the directions of Kherson and Zaporizhia. “I don’t want to distract them from duties directly related to command and control, so we are working here in a professional, brief but concrete manner,” Putin said. “It is important for me to listen to their opinion on how the situation is developing, to listen to them, to exchange information,” he added.

The president has asked the military commanders to begin informing him “about the situation in the Kherson direction and then in the Zaporizhia direction.” He also stressed that Teplinski “was on the front lines for a long time, he made a very detailed report” on the progress of the military campaign, after British intelligence recently stated that the commander of the Airborne Forces was replaced last January but that he had recently returned to command.

This is Putin’s first visit to the Kherson region, that Russian troops only partially control and from whose northern third they withdrew last November. On March 19, he visited Mariupol, in the eastern Donetsk region.

At the headquarters of the ‘Vostok’ group in Lugansk, Putin has in turn listened to reports from Colonel General Alexandr Lapin and other senior commanders on the situation on this front. The Lugansk region is almost 100 percent controlled by Russia, unlike neighboring Donetsk, where it has taken almost half of the territory and where its only offensive is currently taking place in the cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Mariinka.

As quoted by the ‘Interfax’ agency to the Kremlin, “President Putin’s trips to the Kherson region and the Lugansk People’s Republic, as well as to the headquarters of (the groups) Dnieper and Vostok they were not prepared in advance“.