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.

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 and Ukraine dispute the status of the Kursk region, which Kyiv invaded last year in a surprise and successful incursion into Russian territory.