On the shores of Lake Kivu, Goma residents were busy filling up plastic jerrycans with lake water. Less than a week since Rwanda-backed rebels claimed control of the city, basic services like water, internet and electricity were completely cut off.

Russia launched a barrage of drones on Ukraine in an overnight attack on Friday, injuring four people and damaging a hospital and a grain warehouse in the southern Odesa region, officials said.

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."

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.

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.

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