Congo Turns to Putin for Help Ending Rwanda Standoff
Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to help end a showdown with neighbouring Rwanda, which Kinshasa accuses of backing an armed group fighting the government.
Speaking after talks with Putin at the end of a Russia-Africa summit, Tshisekedi said he “absolutely” wanted help from Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, “in the search for peace”. He also asked Moscow to back, at the Security Council, renewal of the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUSCO, which expires in December. Neither Russia nor Rwanda has publicly responded to the request.
A day earlier at the summit, Tshisekedi urged Moscow to support UN Security Council resolutions calling for an end to hostilities, M23’s withdrawal from occupied areas, an end to Rwandan support for the group and the withdrawal of Rwandan forces from Congolese soil. Rwanda denies backing M23. UN experts say Rwandan forces still support the group. Kigali, for its part, demands that Congo neutralise the FDLR, a militia founded by former Hutu officers responsible for the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi.
Diplomacy has so far failed to end the fighting. The M23 has been a key opponent of the government since 2021, and a US-mediated peace accord between Kinshasa and Kigali in December has not stopped the fighting. M23 seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities early last year.
