Russia says all Ukrainian troops have left the Kursk region as Zelenskyy meets Trump at Vatican

Russian forces claim victory in Kursk region against Ukraine, with North Korean soldiers joining the fight.

All Ukrainian troops have been forced from Russia's Kursk region, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff for Russia’s Armed Forces, gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the news in a meeting Saturday, Peskov told Russian state news outlet Interfax.

Ukrainian officials disputed the claim. In its morning update Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces continue to hold back Russian troops in the Kursk sector, pushing back against Russian claims that Ukraine has been fully dislodged from the territory.

Also Read | Zelensky denies troops surrounded in Kursk as Russia retakes villages

In a statement, Mr. Putin congratulated the Russian soldiers and commanders and said that Kyiv’s incursion had “completely failed”.

“The complete defeat of our enemy along Kursk’s border region creates the right conditions for further successes for our troops and in other important areas of the front," he said.

The Ukrainian army stunned Russia in August 2024 by attacking across the border and taking control of an estimated 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of land. The country’s leaders believed the capture of Russian territory might help in any future peace negotiations, but their gains were slowly eroded, and Ukrainian troops continued to lose control of the territory throughout early 2025.