Have liberated Kursk from Kyiv: Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed on Saturday what he said was the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region after Moscow said they had been expelled from the last village they had been holding.

Russia also confirmed for the first time that North Korean soldiers have been fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk, with the chief of the military General Staff praising their “heroism” in helping to drive out the Ukrainians.

However, Kyiv denied that its forces had been expelled from Kursk and said they were also still operating in Belgorod, another Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces seized a swathe of territory in Kursk region last August in a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin. Russian forces, later reinforced by North Korean troops, have been trying ever since to drive them out.

Putin, speaking amid intensified diplomatic efforts by the Trump administration to end the Ukraine conflict, said the expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Russian soil opened the way for further Russian successes inside Ukraine.

“The Kyiv regime’s adventure has completely failed,” Putin said in video footage released by the Kremlin that showed him receiving a report from the head of Russia’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov.