Moscow claims to retake Kursk Oblast, confirms North Korean troop deployment for first time

Editor’s note: The story is being updated.

Russian forces have fully recaptured the territory of Kursk Oblast, the Russian border region partially held by Ukraine since last August, the Kremlin claimed on April 26.

“Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov reported to Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin on the completion of the operation to liberate Kursk Oblast,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ukraine has not commented on the claims, which could not be independently verified. The Kyiv Independent has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment.

For the first time, Gerasimov also acknowledged the participation of North Korean troops in the campaign, praising their “fortitude and heroism.” Kyiv and Seoul have previously said that North Korea has dispatched around 11,000 troops to Kursk Oblast, though Moscow has not openly confirmed this until now.

Ukraine launched a cross-border incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024, marking the first large-scale invasion of Russian territory by foreign forces since World War II. The operation aimed to disrupt a planned Russian offensive on the neighboring Sumy Oblast and draw Russian forces away from the embattled Donbas region.

Russia launched a push to recapture the region in early March, with Ukraine being forced to pull back from much of the initially taken territory, including the town of Sudzha.

As of April 25, Ukrainian battlefield monitoring service DeepState showed Ukrainian forces holding onto limited positions in Kursk Oblast near the border, namely the villages of Oleshnya and Gomal.

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The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima