PHOTOS: Zelenskyy visits liberated city on the front lines of the war Putin started but has never been anywhere near

• Zelenskyy traveled to the recently liberated front-line city of Izium for a ceremony Wednesday.
• The Ukrainian president has made numerous trips to the war's front lines, unlike Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the newly liberated city of Izium on Wednesday for a flag-raising ceremony as his forces continue their rapid counteroffensive in the country's northeast.

Zelenskyy's visit on Wednesday is one of many that he has taken to cities and towns along the front lines — a stark contrast to his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, who does not appear to have traveled anywhere close to the bloody war that he started back in February with the launch of his so-called "special military operation."

"Earlier, when we looked up, we always looked for the blue sky. Today, when we look up, we are looking for only one thing — the flag of Ukraine," Zelenskyy wrote in a post on his Telegram channel, which included photos of his visit.

He continued: "Our blue-yellow flag is already flying in the de-occupied Izium. And it will be so in every Ukrainian city and village. We are moving in only one direction — forward and towards victory."

The following photos are from Zelenskyy's visit to Izium.

Izium — which is a town in northeastern Ukraine's Kharkiv region with a pre-war population of over 46,000 people — was liberated in recent days amid Ukraine's sweeping counteroffensive, which has sent Russian troops scrambling and seen Ukraine reclaim thousands of square miles of territory previously held by Russian troops, who left significant devastation in their wake.

"The view is very shocking, but it's not a shock for me because we began to see the same pictures from Bucha — from the first de-occupied territories," Zelenskyy told reporters in Izium, according to a Reuters video. "So the same — destroyed buildings, killed people, and so, what can I say?"

His remarks on Bucha is a reference to the Kyiv suburb liberated during the spring by Ukrainian forces, who quickly discovered evidence of mass killings, widespread torture, and other human rights violations committed against civilians by the occupying Russian forces.

Another visit to the war's front lines by Zelenskyy once again separates him and Putin, who has made no known appearances anywhere near the war which he initiated and which has seen an estimated tens of thousands of Russian troops killed or wounded in pursuit of objectives that remain out of reach.

Even on the domestic front, Putin has repeatedly kept war-related business, among other pressing issues, at arm's length — often farther — by meeting with Russian officials and world leaders at very long tables and by cracking down on dissent.

Throughout the war, the Russian leader has offered a series of shifting justifications for the conflict, ranging from the bogus claim that Russian forces are fighting to oust neo-Nazis to blaming NATO — an alliance of which Ukraine is not a member. And he's effectively criminalized criticism of the war by making it illegal to spread what Russia vaguely calls "fake news" about the military.

Though Russia has suffered devastating troop losses in Ukraine and could use a major manpower boost, Putin has so far avoided declaring a general mobilization.

Doing so would risk entering precarious political territory that could prompt significant backlash, as it could see the children of wealthy elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg drafted into the war. A mass mobilization would also amount to a public acknowledgement that the conflict is not going well — given the need for more personnel — and that the "special operation" in Ukraine is, in fact, a war.

While Putin has made every effort to keep Russians in the dark on the war, it's seemingly becoming more and more difficult for him to hide how disastrous the conflict has been for Russian forces.

In a country where dissent can lead to imprisonment or even death, dozens of local Russian lawmakers have recently called for Putin to be removed from power and charged with treason. Russian propagandists on state news channels are also struggling to continue painting a rosy picture of how the war is going.

Despite the astonishing amount of territory Ukraine has captured in recent days, on top of the tens of thousands of Russians killed in the war, Putin has continued to behave as if all is well.

As Russian forces retreated in Ukraine, Putin over the weekend opened a ferris wheel in Moscow. "There is nothing like that in Europe," Putin declared of the ferris wheel. The ride broke down a day later in a moment that seemed to encapsulate how poorly things are going for Putin at present.