Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy replaced the commander of the eastern front, the most heated battlefield of the Ukraine war, after Russian forces captured another strategic town there.

Ukraine is deeply concerned about the escalation of hostilities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Rebels, supported by Rwanda, have entered the largest city in the eastern region, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Vladimir Putin grabbed Donbas, an eastern region of Ukraine, and pretended he had not. As a figleaf he used local separatist forces, which Russia armed, supplied and directed. These forces, he claimed,

Hundreds of people in combat fatigues massed at Goma's Stade de l'Unité after M23 tells disarmed soldiers to report to stadium. Video credit: Social media.

Russian prosecutors are seeking to recover nearly $33 million of funds that they say were allocated for the defence of the western Kursk region, invaded by Ukraine last year, but stolen instead by corrupt officials.

Missiles are flying above civilians' homes as fighters fire heavy artillery in Goma's city centre, an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson tells the BBC. "It is a very densely populated area... there are lots of victims in terms of civilians, Myriam Favier says.

The Rwanda-backed M23 group is one of about 100 armed factions vying for a foothold in eastern Congo in one of Africa’s longest conflicts, displacing 4.5 million people and creating what the U.N. called “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth."

President of the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Thursday that his troopers are fighting an insurgence by the Rwandan-backed militant group M23 which recently captured swaths of land in the east.

The scene is the result of the invasion of Goma on January 27th by M23, an armed group under the control of Rwanda, Congo’s neighbour, which abuts the city. Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, has escalated a crisis whose origins go back decades.

Ukraine needed broader security guarantees and Russian President Vladimir Putin was not afraid of Europe, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Fox News in an interview in which he urged US President Donald Trump to be on Ukraine's side.

A rebel alliance claimed the capture of the biggest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich eastern region this week, pushing back against resistance from government troops backed by regional and UN intervention forces.

Red Cross staff load bodies onto a lorry bound for the morgue of the hospital in the north of Goma.