Pro-government forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are conducting two offensives against M23 and allied fighters in South Kivu province, according to analysis published this week by the Critical Threats Project. The aim appears to be retaking positions of operational significance and putting pressure on M23’s western flank.

The offensives come days after the ceasefire verification mechanism — backed by the United States and regional governments — carried out its first mission in the South Kivu highlands in late August.

Verification and offensive in the same fortnight

The sequence is not as contradictory as it looks. A verification mechanism establishes where the lines are and who is standing on them. That information is valuable to monitors and to commanders alike, and the period immediately after a first inspection is exactly when the map is clearest.

Parties to a ceasefire frequently take ground while a monitoring process is being set up, on the reasoning that positions held when a framework hardens tend to become the positions that a settlement recognises. This is the ordinary dynamic of ceasefires that are agreed before either side has run out of options — the agreement creates a deadline, and a deadline creates an incentive to move first.

What “pro-government forces” is doing in that sentence

The phrase is deliberate and worth unpacking. The forces fighting M23 in the east include the Congolese army, but also Wazalendo militias, Burundian troops, and various local self-defence groups with their own commanders and objectives.

That composition matters for any agreement. Kinshasa can commit the national army to a ceasefire; it cannot reliably commit every militia fighting on its side, and violations by irregular forces are both likely and deniable. The same problem exists in reverse on the other side, where M23 operates with support that Rwanda denies providing. Two governments signing a document does not, by itself, stop shooting conducted by people who did not sign it.

The part that does not appear in the analysis

Assessments of this conflict are usually written in the language of flanks and operationally significant positions, because that is what can be tracked from outside. Underneath it, eastern DR Congo holds one of the world’s largest displaced populations, with millions of people who have moved more than once and camps that have been overrun repeatedly since M23’s advance began.

An offensive to retake positions means, at ground level, front lines moving through inhabited highlands. The humanitarian consequence appears in displacement figures weeks later, and by then the offensive has stopped being reported.

Sources

• Critical Threats Project, Africa File, 3 September 2026
• Reporting on the ceasefire verification mechanism’s first mission in the South Kivu highlands, late August 2026