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The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is posing unprecedented challenges across the world, putting considerable strains on leadership, the health sector and our way of living. Insurgent groups from the Taliban to Al Shabab, have provided health advice and produced propaganda highlighting their action against Covid-19. Gangs in Rio have sought to enforce pandemic restrictions and notorious cartel leader El Chapo has produced health kits emblazoned with his likeness, unmasking in some cases state fragility and institutional weaknesses. While some armed groups have used the pandemic as another means of waging their propaganda, armed groups in Mali, Central African Republic and elsewhere, have heeded the UN Secretary General’s call to halt the violence in aid of efforts to combat Covid-19. As we launch the ODI Centre for the Study of Armed Groups, we discuss how armed groups across the world’s conflict zones have reacted to the pandemic, and the implications this will have for humanitarian responses, peacebuilding efforts and development aid.