"There is reason to believe that Ukrainian special services were involved," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

Russia said it arrested a man suspected in the murder of a senior military official near Moscow and claimed that a car bomb had been activated remotely from Ukraine.

A top Russian general died Friday in a car bombing, on the same day President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and a day after Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

The leaked American ceasefire proposal would end sanctions on Russia, freeze the front line and see America formally recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The intelligence officer, based in Kyiv, does not hide his disdain.

All Ukrainian troops have been forced from parts of Russia’s Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukrainian incursion, Russia’s top general said in a Kremlin meeting Saturday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed on Saturday what he called the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces into Russia's Kursk region after they were expelled from the last village Moscow said they had been holding.

The admission is a sign of the deepening military alliance and mutual defense pact between Pyongyang and Moscow.

They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honor of the motherland,” Kim Jong Un said.

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.