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.

North Korea acknowledged for the first time that it deployed troops to support Russia’s war on Ukraine, claiming the country’s military had helped Moscow retake control of the border region of Kursk.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un decided to participate in the conflict to liberate the Kursk region and to repel the “adventurous invasion” of Russia by the Ukrainian army in an operation that has been “victoriously concluded,