North Korean troops have begun engaging in combat operations alongside Russian forces, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, expressing concern that Russia had turned to North Korea for soldiers to fight in its war with Ukraine.

North Korea ratified a major defense treaty with Russia stipulating mutual military aid, the North’s state media reported Tuesday, as the U.S., South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

Russia lost more men in one day than one of its recent daily male birth rates, as it reached its highest number of casualties in a single day since Moscow invaded Ukraine. Some 1,950 troops died on Monday, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces ...

Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban what authorities cast as pernicious propaganda for a child-free way of life, hoping to boost a faltering birth rate. Official data released in September put the birth rate at its lowest in a quarter of a century while mortality rates are up as Moscow's war in Ukraine rages on.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia has deployed nearly 50,000 troops to Kursk, the southern Russian region where Kyiv launched its surprise counteroffensive in the summer.

Ukraine's president says the incursion is limiting the forces Moscow can deploy inside his country.