World roundup: February 20 2025

Stories from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Mexico, and elsewhere

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TODAY IN HISTORY

February 20, 1865: The Uruguayan War, which began as a rebellion by the Colorado Party (aided by Brazil and Argentina) against the Blanco Party-led Uruguayan government (aided by Paraguay), ends with the Blancos’ surrender and the formation of a new Colorado-led government. The results of this relatively short (a bit over six months) conflict were mostly subsumed by the much longer (almost five and half year) and more destructive Paraguayan War (AKA the “War of the Triple Alliance”) that spun out of it. Brazil and Paraguay had already gone to war the previous year, and when the Uruguayan War ended both Argentina and the new Uruguayan government also declared war against Paraguay.

February 20, 1988: Leaders of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave declare independence from Azerbaijan along with their intention to merge the region with Armenia, kicking off a six year war. A relatively low-level conflict in its first couple of years, the war really heated up with the fall of the Soviet Union, when both Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent states free to conduct their own wars without oversight. The conflict ended in 1994 with an Armenian military victory that established both Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto independence and an Armenian military occupation in surrounding parts of Azerbaijan. A second war in 2020 and a followup operation in 2023 brought all of that territory, including Karabakh, back under Azerbaijani control.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

One day after the Humanity and Inclusion NGO highlighted the danger that unexploded ordinance (UXO) poses to Syrian civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a UXO blast killed at least eight people—three of them children—in northwestern Syria’s Aleppo province. According to the Observatory, the blast occurred at the home of “a scrap dealer who collected unexploded ordnance for its metal content.” This is an all too common occurrence in Syria these days—last month, H&I says it cataloged at least 125 UXO explosions across the country that killed at least 85 people and wounded another 152.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

As expected, Hamas repatriated the bodies of four dead October 7 hostages on Thursday, including the remains of the two youngest hostages, Ariel and Kfir months old) Bibas, and their mother (though there is apparently some dispute about the identity of the body said to be hers). Hamas has insisted for months that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike, though that insistence obscures the larger point that they never should have been taken hostage in the first place. The fourth member of the family, Yarden Bibas, was released alive on February 1. Hamas staged a public propaganda ceremony around the return of the bodies, which unsurprisingly drew condemnations from both the Israeli government and the United Nations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned the event for violating “the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families” that applies to any transfer of remains under international law.

Three empty buses exploded in a suburb of Tel Aviv on Thursday evening in an attempted terrorist attack gone awry. Police subsequently discovered bombs on another two buses in the city of Holon and there is a broader search of buses in the area for suspicious devices. Rail operations have also been affected. There were no casualties, but it’s likely that these devices were all meant to explode on Friday morning when those vehicles would have been full of passengers. Had this gone according to plan the number of casualties might have been very high. The “Tulkarm Brigade” militant group claimed responsibility for planting the bombs.

IRAN

The NGOs Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) issued a joint report on Thursday estimating that the Iranian government put at least 975 people to death last year. That’s an increase of some 17 percent over the 834 people Iran executed in 2023—a “horrifying escalation,” as the report put it. It is the largest number of executions recorded in Iran since IHR began tracking that figure in 2008, and it may be an undercount—the report mentions 39 other executions that the organizations were unable to confirm.

ASIA

THAILAND

The effort to repatriate thousands of people trafficked into working in scam operations based primarily in Myanmar is underway, as a group of some 200 Chinese nationals recently freed from their captivity were sent home on Thursday. Thai authorities are expecting to repatriate some 600 Chinese nationals this week. Some 7000 people have been extricated from the scammers and are waiting to be transferred to Thailand for processing.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made two court appearances on Thursday in relation to his attempt to seize power under martial law in December. One of those appearances coincided with the opening of his criminal trial, which as we noted yesterday makes him the first sitting South Korean president to face a criminal trial. But perhaps the more newsworthy of the two involved Yoon’s impeachment trial, if only because the Constitutional Court announced that it will hear final arguments in that case on February 25. Barring any unforeseen interruptions, then, the Court should have a final judgment on the impeachment by mid-March.

Yoon (left) attending Thursday’s impeachment session (JEON HEON-KYUN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

AFRICA

SUDAN

The Rapid Support Forces militant group along with other entities—chiefly a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel group and the National Umma Party—will sign the charter creating a new government in the Sudanese territory under its control on Friday. These parties had been set to sign the charter during a ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday but they postponed over some sort of objection by SPLM-N leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu that has apparently been resolved. I’m unsure whether the new signing ceremony is still going to take place in Kenya, but diplomatically it may not matter as Sudan’s military government withdrew its ambassador from Kenya on Thursday anyway.

NIGER

Niger’s National Conference, a body established by the country’s ruling junta to map out a transition back to nominally democratic rule, proposed a five year transition on Thursday that would allow junta leader Abdourahamane Tiani to run for president in the ensuing election. Call me crazy but something tells me he’d win that contest. There is of course no reason to expect a genuine transition to something other than de facto military rule, though five years seems excessive even as phony transitions go.

SOMALIA

Security forces have reportedly resisted a number of “coordinated raids” by al-Shabab militants targeting four villages in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region that began on Thursday morning. The jihadists briefly seized two of the villages but were eventually driven out according to Reuters, citing residents and the Somali Defense Ministry. The ministry says that its forces killed “more than 130” of the attackers.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

M23 fighters reportedly impressed residents of the eastern Congolese city of Bukavu into doing cleanup duty on Thursday, hoping to restore some semblance of order while also demonstrating their control over the city they conquered on Sunday. While the militants were able to take Bukavu with minimal fighting, the hasty retreat by Congolese military forces left the city in a state of panic and lawlessness that made the cleanup necessary. According to AFP several residents seemed happy to participate in the effort, though whether they were genuinely happy or were cowed by the armed M23 fighters overseeing their work is unclear. In marked contrast to events in Bukavu, a mob of deserting Congolese soldiers reportedly descended on the town of Lubero in North Kivu province on Thursday and engaged in what sounds like fairly widespread looting of their own.

The Trump administration on Thursday blacklisted M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka Kingston and Rwandan Minister for Regional Integration James Kabarebe, along with two companies connected to Kingston. According to the US Treasury Department, Kabarebe has been acting as the Rwandan government’s main liaison to M23 and is overseeing the export of the mineral resources that the militants are extracting from the eastern DRC and shipping into Rwanda.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

According to The New York Times, the Russian government is trying to woo Donald Trump with talk of windfall profits for American companies:

The Russian government’s top investment manager, who has Harvard and McKinsey credentials and fluent English, brought a simple printout to Tuesday’s talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia.

Its message: By pulling out of Russia in outrage over the invasion of Ukraine, American companies had walked away from piles of cold, hard cash.

“Losses of U.S. companies by industry,” read the document, which Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, showed to a New York Times reporter. “Total losses,” one of the columns said. The sum at the bottom: $324 billion.

In appealing to President Trump, the Kremlin has zeroed in on his desire to make a profit. President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday praised the U.S. delegation in Riyadh for not criticizing Russia as previous administrations did — there was no “condemnation of what was done in the past,” he said. He added that beyond geopolitics, the two countries were now moving toward deeper engagement on space, the economy and “our joint work on global energy markets.”

This is of course the same tactic Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has taken in offering up Ukraine’s mineral resources to Trump in return for continued US support. The problem for Zelensky is that Trump regards Ukraine’s mineral wealth as appropriate payment for past services rendered, not for future support.

Elsewhere, the Russian military now says it’s recovered some 64 percent (which translates to around 800 square kilometers) of the territory that Ukrainian forces seized in Kursk oblast. Ukrainian officials have been insisting that they can trade Kursk territory to recover Ukrainian territory in future peace talks, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to have very much left to trade at this point.

UKRAINE

Zelensky met with Trump administration Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday amid the seemingly complete breakdown of his relationship with Donald Trump himself. They’ve spent the past couple of days slinging insults back and forth after Zelensky criticized Tuesday’s US-Russia diplomatic meeting for having discussed Ukraine without any Ukrainian representation in the room. Now it seems the US is objecting to a proposed G7 statement to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion because it refers to “Russian aggression” and is refusing to co-sponsor a United Nations resolution also marking the anniversary. So clearly the bilateral relationship isn’t in a good place right now. Zelensky did put a positive spin on his discussion with Kellogg, but he also canceled a planned joint press conference apparently at Washington’s request.

Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told reporters on Friday that Trump’s “frustration” with Zelensky stems in large part from the latter’s rejection of what sounds like a very lopsided deal that would give the US significant control over Ukrainian mineral resources. While it’s unsurprising that Zelensky didn’t accept the arrangement that was on the table, he may have miscalculated in making his rejection public rather than continuing negotiations. Now Reuters is reporting that the US and Ukraine may try to cobble together a “streamlined” deal that would tie the two countries together in principle while leaving the details of their economic arrangement to be worked out down the road.

AUSTRIA

The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) are, according to Reuters, “moving quickly towards a coalition deal” following the breakdown of ÖVP’s coalition talks with the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ). If they can reach a two-way agreement they’ll then work on gaining the support of one or more small centrist parties to round out a potential government. If these talks fail a snap election, in which polling favors FPÖ, would be the likeliest outcome.

AMERICAS

BOLIVIA

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales announced on Thursday that he will be running for a fourth term in office in August’s election, even though from a strictly legal perspective that option does not appear to be available to him. Bolivian courts have consistently maintained the country’s constitutional two term limit, which Morales sidestepped to win a third term in 2014 but may have a harder time surmounting when he’s not the incumbent. Morales is also subject to an open arrest warrant in a statutory rape case. If somehow he does manage to run he won’t be doing it as the candidate of the Movement for Socialism party, having apparently ceded that ballot line to current President Luis Arce. Morales will instead run as under the banner of the much smaller “Front for Victory” party.

MEXICO

After the Trump administration added six Mexican cartels to its “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization” list the previous day, Mexican President Claudian Sheinbaum on Thursday proposed a constitutional amendment explicitly rejecting “interventions, intrusions, or any other action from abroad that are detrimental to the integrity, independence, or sovereignty of the nation.”

The terrorist designation carries a host of complications for US and Mexican businesses that now have to figure out if they’re engaging with individuals or companies that have some sort of cartel link, and may penalize asylum seekers who have been subject to cartel extortion (making protection payments to a designated terrorist organization, even if unwillingly, could now legally be considered support for terrorism). But mostly it’s being viewed as a possible prelude to some sort of US military action inside Mexico, hence the amendment. Sheinbaum is also proposing to increase criminal penalties for arms trafficking. It probably comes as no surprise that most of the guns that wind up in the hands of cartel members originate in the US.

CANADA

The Canadian government followed up those US designations (see above) by designating seven Latin American criminal networks as terrorist organizations. These overlap with the designations the US made, including five Mexican cartels along with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). One of Donald Trump’s demands when he imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports a few weeks ago was that Canada would follow Washington’s lead in making these sorts of designations, so Thursday’s move was probably to be expected.

UNITED STATES

The South African government hosted the year’s first meeting of G20 foreign ministers on Thursday and the session was less notable for what happened than for who was absent. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped the festivities, in keeping with his boss’s decision to punish South Africa for its supposed transgressions. I’m sure he was…missed? On second thought, probably not.

Elsewhere, the Trump administration has ordered personnel at the US Global Change Research Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to stop cooperating with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Both of those agencies are probably going to be decimated in some forthcoming round of Trump-Musk staffing cuts so I’m not sure this will wind up being that big a deal. At any rate the United States wasn’t going to be involved in anything having to do with climate change for at least the next four years anyway.

Finally, you may recall that The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the administration is looking for ways to cut the Pentagon budget. Responsible Statecraft’s William Hartung warns against reading too much into this:

Critics of overspending at the Pentagon were excited to see a Washington Post piece, first published yesterday, that initially gave the impression that the Trump administration was entertaining the idea of imposing substantial cuts in the Pentagon budget.

A revised version of the piece (same link), updated Thursday morning, opens as follows:

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the matter — a striking proposal certain to face internal resistance and strident bipartisan opposition in Congress.”

But upon clarification, it became clear that the plan is not to reduce the Pentagon’s top line, but to shift any savings found in one part of the department to pay for other systems and activities more in line with the preferences of the administration.

A clue as to what those priorities are is contained in the internal memorandum itself, which exempts 17 categories of expenditure from cuts, including operations at the southern border, spending on missile defense and a new generation of nuclear weapons, acquisition of submarines, and certain categories of drones and other munitions.