Current events: 2025-02-16

[Wikipedia Current Events]

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Kivu conflict
  • M23 campaign
    • 2025 Bukavu offensive
      • Local officials and residents report that Rwanda-backed M23 forces have taken over the center of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu in eastern DR Congo. (Al Jazeera)
      • The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo acknowledges the fall of Bukavu to M23 rebels, and urges its roughly two million residents to shelter in place. (BBC News)
• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Mykolaiv strikes, Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure
    • Russia launches drone strikes across Ukraine, injuring at least one person and damaging a thermal power station in Mykolaiv, leaving 46,000 people without heat. Ukraine says that it shot down 95 of 143 drones while disrupting 46 others by electronic countermeasures. (Reuters)

International relations

• Russia–United States relations, Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio leads a U.S. delegation, along with National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for initial talks with Russia. A Russian source reports that the meeting will occur on 18 February, and that the Russian delegation is expected to include Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov, and SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin. (AP) (Kommersant)

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