Kyiv, 26 April

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.

In a statement, 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 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.

Gerasimov also confirmed Saturday that North Korean soldiers fought against Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region.

Gerasimov said that they took part in “combat missions shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen during the repelling of the Ukrainian incursion” and “demonstrated high professionalism, showed fortitude, courage and heroism in battle”.

In the fall, Ukraine, the US and South Korea all said that North Korea, which previously had supplied weapons to Moscow, had deployed 10,000-12,000 of its troops to Russia to fight in Kursk.

Moscow and Pyongyang until now had responded vaguely to the South Korean and Western claims of the troop deployment, emphasizing that their military cooperation conforms with international law, without directly admitting the presence of the North Korean forces in Russia.

The news comes as US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Vatican City on the sidelines of the pope's funeral to discuss a potential ceasefire deal.

The presidents met at St. Peter's Basilica for about 15 minutes and agreed to continue negotiations later on Saturday, Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhii Nykyforov said. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung also confirmed the meeting.

Shortly after arriving in Rome last Friday, Trump said on social media that Ukraine and Russia should meet for “very high-level talks” on ending the three-year war sparked by Russia's invasion.

His envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier Friday, and Trump said both sides were “very close to a deal”.

Three people were killed overnight by Russian attacks across Ukraine, local officials also said Saturday.

Two people died in a strike on the town of Yarova in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, local Gov. Vadym Filashkin said in a post on social media. Another person died in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said Gov Serhiy Lysak. Six people were injured, including an 88-year-old woman and an 11-year-old girl, he said.

Russia launched three missiles and 114 drones over Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's air force wrote in a statement Saturday. Sixty-six drones were destroyed and a further 31 decoy drones failed to reach their destination.

Meanwhile, Russian air defences shot down 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, the country's defence ministry said.