Till We Meet Again British World War Ii Tv Series

Updates from BBC correspondents in Ukraine: Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin, Lyse Doucet and James Waterhouse in Kyiv, Andrew Harding in Odesa, Wyre Davies in Dnipro, Quentin Sommerville in Kharkiv, and Jonah Fisher and Hugo Bachega in Lviv

Alive Reporting

Edited by Chris Giles

All times stated are Uk

Macron dismisses Putin demand for gas payments in roubles

Copyright: Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron has said there is no reason to accept a demand from Russia to pay upward in roubles for Russian gas.

Europe is attempting to reduce its reliance on Russian gas due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Before this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he wanted "unfriendly" countries to buy its gas with roubles. The motion is understood to be aimed at boosting the Russian currency, which has lost over 20% in value this yr.

"All the texts that have been signed are clear. This is forbidden," Macron told a news conference after a European Wedlock pinnacle in Brussels.

"European firms that buy gas and which are operating on European territory have to do so in euros. Therefore it is not possible today to practise what is being demanded, information technology is non contractual," added Macron.
It doesn't matter what's written on the sign - Russian asterisk protester

Caroline Davies

BBC Moscow Correspondent

Copyright: Sota

Dmitry Reznikov is a 22-year-old student in Moscow. He was detained on thirteen March for holding upwardly a sign with no words, only asterisks. He was fined 50,000 roubles (near £380) for discrediting Russia'due south military.

"I made the decision to do information technology on an impulse," Reznikov says. "I knew it doesn't matter what is written on the sign, it could have been blank, we've seen people arrested for that earlier. Everyone understands what this sign is about and what side it expresses."

He adds, "Information technology's of import that people shouldn't stay silent if they agree that what is going on is terrible, they should express their opinion."

Reznikov tells me: "The master reason I did it is because there is no justification for this conflict. Civilians and soldiers are dying. I wasn't trying to discredit the army."

The 22-year-old has been detained twice since the offset of the conflict. He used to protestation before what is being described here as President Putin's special war machine operation, but says, "Now I am far more afraid to practise it. There's more repression and criminal prosecutions."

Reznikov says he doesn't know what will happen next in Russian federation. "I hope the conflict will cease, that no more than people will die."
Apology after email addresses revealed

The Foreign Function has apologised afterwards mistakenly sharing the electronic mail addresses of dozens of people who were living in Ukraine and seeking refuge in the UK.

It failed to hide recipients' emails when it sent out a mass electronic mail asking those seeking assist whether they had managed to go out Ukraine.

The email was sent to 42 recipients on 20 March.

BBC Radio four's PM programme was alerted to the breach by Sam who left Kyiv with his partner having beginning sought Strange Part advice.

He said information technology was a "huge security risk" that could see them targeted by Russia.

"I would say we have had a weak form of generic apology, with ... no activity, no real formal apology, no real public apology. Nothing that is putting my mind at balance," he said.

The Strange Function suggestion to "maybe attempt looking out for any spam emails" was "weak and woefully inadequate", he said.

Terminal yr the Ministry of Defence twice mistakenly shared the email addresses of Afghans who wanted to relocate to the UK as the Taliban were taking over the country.
France working with Turkey and Greece on programme for Mariupol evacuations

Copyright: BBC

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he's working with Turkey and Greece on plans for a "humanitarian operation" to evacuate people from the devastated southern city of Mariupol.

He said he hoped to speak to Russia's President Putin "within the adjacent 48 to 72 hours" regarding the planned initiative.

The port city of Mariupol lies in ruins after relentless Russian shelling. Tens of thousands remain trapped inside, with fiddling admission to food, water, electricity or gas.

Macron told reporters in that location was a "concrete" discussion today with the mayor of Mariupol. "We are analogous and nosotros volition and so negotiate with the Russians," he said.

Earlier, an official told the BBC that an estimated 300 people had died in last week's attack on a theatre in the urban center, where civilians had been sheltering.

Copyright: BBC
More than vii,000 evacuated through humanitarian corridors today - deputy PM

A total of seven,331 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors today, a senior official said.

This is more than than double the iii,343 who managed to escape on Thursday.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post that 2,800 people had left the besieged city of Mariupol using individual transport.
How could Nato respond to a chemical attack in Ukraine?

Frank Gardner

BBC Security Correspondent

Nato leaders have been growing increasingly concerned that Russia, faced with something of a military stalemate in much of its campaign in Ukraine, could be preparing to launch a chemical assail in social club to break the deadlock. In that location is no published testify on the ground to dorsum this upwardly just President Biden has warned that Nato would respond to a chemic set on "in kind".

And then what does that mean exactly? Well it does non hateful a Nato chemical assail in response. Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Adviser, fabricated that articulate on Friday when he said the Us would not apply chemical weapons under any circumstance. Both the United states and Russia are signatories to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty outlawing these horrific weapons, likewise signed by 191 other nations.

Russian federation is supposed to have destroyed all its chemical weapons stocks past 2017. But the following yr information technology was blamed for the poisoning in Salisbury of sometime KGB officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter using the nerve agent Novichok smeared onto their front end door. This is why President Biden has said Russia has used chemical weapons before.

Fifty-fifty if Russia has secretly held back some stocks of poison gas or liquid nerve agent, which it has non admitted to, it is unlikely to be in a position to utilise this on a mass scale on the battleground in Ukraine.

Instead, experts believe, the well-nigh probable risk is that Russian forces could attempt a deliberate release of toxic industrial chemicals similar chlorine from existing Ukrainian factories. This could have a devastating event on civilians living in a built-upward expanse and in the fog and confusion of war it may not exist immediately articulate who was responsible. A contempo release of ammonia gas was deemed to be adventitious.

If such a blurred line existed it might be hard for Nato countries to reach a unanimous decision on how harshly they should respond.
Kherson 'contested territory again' - US defence official

Copyright: BBC

Copyright: Getty Images

Image caption: A funeral for a Ukrainian soldier killed in Kherson

Kherson, the southern Ukrainian urban center that was the start major population centre captured at the showtime of the war, is "contested territory again," a US defence official has told journalists.

If the city, which is relatively close to the Crimean peninsula, were to be retaken past Ukraine, it would represent a major setback for Russia's offensive.

Russia'south armed services has disputed that information technology has lost control of Kherson, and Ukrainians on the ground at that place have not reported that it has been recaptured.

"The Ukrainians are trying to take Kherson back, and we would argue that Kherson is actually contested territory again," the Pentagon official told reporters on Friday.

"We tin can't corroborate exactly who is in control of Kherson just the signal is, it doesn't appear to be equally solidly in Russian control as it was earlier," added the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

Fighting is ongoing in the larger region of Kherson Oblast, according to the latest reports, every bit Russian federation continues to focus its efforts on taking the southern Black Sea coast.

Copyright: BBC
Interpol sends team to Moldova amid human trafficking concerns

Copyright: AFP via Getty Images

Image caption: Virtually 380,000 Ukrainians have fled into Moldova

Global police organisation Interpol has sent a team to Moldova amid human trafficking concerns every bit the country deals with a huge surge in refugees fleeing Ukraine.

Since the start of Russia's invasion, almost 380,000 Ukrainians have fled into neighbouring Moldova, which has a population of ii.6 1000000 and is one of the poorest countries in Europe.

The Interpol team will exist deployed in the capital Chisinau and different refugee camps, it said in a argument.

The agency has already received reports of human traffickers and smugglers waiting at border checkpoints to prey on "vulnerable" Ukrainians, it said.

"Children and unaccompanied minors are particularly vulnerable to exploitation past smugglers and traffickers," Interpol warned.
WATCH: Putin has started a ceremonious war, says erstwhile Russian MP

Video content

Video caption: Putin has started a ceremonious war, says onetime Russian MP

Former Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, a long standing Putin critic, tells the BBC's Hardtalk programme that the Russian president has started "an imperialist war" in Ukraine that could rip Russia apart.
Journey to Kyiv's front end line

Jeremy Bowen

BBC News, Irpin

Smoke equally heavy every bit a winter fog hung over the final mile or so of the road into Irpin, but a twenty-infinitesimal drive north-due west of Kyiv. Trees and undergrowth in the pino forest on either side were called-for, set alight by shelling. The road was almost empty.

When our BBC squad was last able to come up here, about three weeks ago, the city was badly damaged. At present it is in ruins.

Copyright: BBC

Irpin sits in an arc of towns that also includes Bucha and Hostomel, where the most important fighting for the future of Kyiv is taking identify.

Commander Oleg said the Russians had been pushed back. He explained that they were hitting Russian supply lines. Putin's men nevertheless had a toehold on the ground in Irpin, but the fashion they fabricated their presence felt was with heavy artillery.

Outset-hand reporting helps, only it is still hard to penetrate the fog of war, especially in a identify that is beingness shelled more or less constantly. As far as I could see, the claims made by the Ukrainian armed forces that information technology is property territory and even taking some of it back are true.

Read more - Next finish Kyiv: the battle on the capital'south outskirts
Ukraine denies meaning progress in peace talks

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said peace negotiations with Russia are difficult, and denied reports that progress had been made in resolving four out of six primal problems.

It comes after a member of the Russian negotiating squad before said that the 2 sides were coming closer to an understanding on secondary issues. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was also reported as saying progress had been made in the talks.

But Kuleba said "at that place is no consensus with Russia on the four points".

"The negotiation process is very difficult," he posted on Facebook. "The Ukrainian delegation has taken a strong position and does not relinquish its demands. We insist, starting time of all, on a ceasefire, security guarantees and territorial integrity of Ukraine."

Kuleba afterward tweeted that there was "no consensus in negotiations yet", complaining "Russian federation sticks to ultimatums".

He added: "To stimulate a more constructive approach we need two things: more than sanctions and more armed services aid for Ukraine."
Satellite photo shows destroyed Russian ship

Copyright: Reuters

New satellite photos from Maxar testify the part-submerged Russian vessel that was destroyed in the occupied port of Berdyansk on Thursday.

The Ukrainian war machine said the Saratov, a landing ship, had been hit by its forces. The vessel had previously incorrectly been identified as the Orsk, the military said, calculation that 2 other Russian landing ships had also sustained impairment.

The satellite photos taken today shows blackness smoke standing to billow from a construction on the port close to several fuel storage tanks.

Copyright: Reuters
Russian federation strikes control eye in Vinnytsia

Kyiv says in that location has been a Russian missile attack on a military command centre in the primal Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia.

Missiles hit several buildings, causing "significant impairment to infrastructure", the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Earlier Russian federation claimed to accept near completely destroyed Ukraine's air force and air defence capability.
Putin doesn't care near you - ex-Georgian leader to Lukashenko

A bit random, but Georgia'southward former leader Mikheil Saakashvili - a pro-Western reformer - has been addressing the longtime Republic of belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko on Twitter.

Belarus is effectively a client state of Russian federation. Russian troops invaded Ukraine from Belarus territory. However despite speculation Belarusian troops might exist chosen to take part in the state of war, this has not yet happened.

Saakashvili told Lukashenko that his reign would be over if he sent his ain troops into Ukraine.

"Luka, I've never given you lot bad advice. If you lot send troops to Ukraine, you will no longer be in power in a month at the most and you volition end upwards very badly. Putin doesn't care about your fate, you know," the Georgian wrote.

Saakashvili himself remains in prison house in Georgia. He fabricated a surprise return to the state final yr and was and then arrested for a conviction he was given in absentia. He says he is a political prisoner.
First indication Moscow may be limiting war aims

Lyse Doucet

Chief International Contributor, Kyiv

Copyright: Reuters

Image caption: Much of Mariupol lies in ruins

The Donbas region in eastern Ukraine is the main focus now says Moscow.

That includes Donetsk and Luhansk, held by Russian backed separatists since 2014 and officially recognised as contained past Russia merely earlier this invasion began.

Over the past month, Russian forces made significant advances in this region and along a southern corridor linking it with Crimea - the peninsula annexed past Moscow, as well in 2014.

Major General Sergei Rudskoi said Russian federation did not exclude attacks on other cities, including the upper-case letter Kyiv, but this wasn't its main objective.

These comments are the beginning indication Moscow may be limiting its war aims after a calendar month where it'south failed to seize any major Ukrainian city and its operations have been plagued by logistical difficulties and tactical mistakes too as fierce Ukrainian resistance.

Merely for now, its forces are even so on the basis and in activeness across large parts of Ukraine. And many Ukrainians are suffering bitterly, as the human cost becomes ever clearer.

Details are simply now emerging of the number of dead in terminal week's straight assail on a theatre in the besieged southern port metropolis of Mariupol. Urgent rescue efforts take been blocked by ceaseless Russian shelling.

Merely there had been promise that some 1,000 people, mainly women and children, sheltering in its hush-hush bunker had been protected. Officials now say at least 300 people were killed.

And the pitched battle for Mariupol, which now lies in ruin, goes on.

Copyright: BBC
In pictures: Biden shares pizza with US soldiers in Poland

Copyright: Reuters

US President Joe Biden has been meeting US soldiers in Rzeszow, Poland.

He met members of the The states Army's 82nd Airborne Division stationed in the area of Rzeszow aerodrome as role of Nato's protection of the brotherhood's eastern flank.

He tweeted to say they're doing incredible work.

The president shared pizza and chatted with several armed forces personnel.

"Well, if you're starting to eat, I'yard going to sit down down and have something to eat," Biden said.

Then he grabbed a slice of pepperoni and jalapeño pizza. The jalapeños fabricated his eyes h2o, so he dabbed at them with a napkin and someone got him a glass of h2o.

Copyright: Reuters

Upon arriving in Poland, Biden met with a Smooth delegation including Defense Government minister Mariusz Blaszczak.

His schedule was delayed after the aeroplane carrying Polish President Andrzej Duda was turned dorsum en road to Rzeszow and fabricated an emergency landing in Warsaw. Duda afterwards boarded a different aircraft and headed dorsum to eastern Poland. An official in his role said Duda had not been in any danger.

Biden and Duda are expected to encounter later today.

Biden will as well receive a briefing on Poland's response to the more 2 million refugees who've flooded beyond the border from Ukraine in the by calendar month.

Copyright: Reuters
What's the latest on Ukraine?
If y'all're just joining usa or need a catch up, here are some of the latest developments:
- Russia has said the beginning phase of the war is over and it will at present focus on the "complete liberation" of the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region
- Peace talks between Russian federation and Ukraine are standing - just in that location has been lilliputian progress on the chief political issues, co-ordinate to a member of the Russian negotiating team
- Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has dismissed an appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for weapons and tougher sanctions against Russia
- The Russian defence ministry has given an update on its military casualties , for but the second fourth dimension, claiming one,351 of its soldiers accept been killed and 3,825 wounded
- Poland's President Andrzej Duda has arrived to meet Joe Biden in Rzeszow, eastern Poland, later his plane turned back en route and had to make an emergency landing in Warsaw
- The Un rights function says information technology has confirmed that at least 1,081 civilians take died and 1,707 accept been injured since Russian federation invaded Ukraine, adding that the true death toll was probable to be considerably higher
- British writer JK Rowling has hit dorsum at Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president cited her in a wide-ranging speech communication that saw him criticise "cancel culture"
- U.k. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken to China's President Xi Jinping, maxim pressure should exist put on President Vladimir Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine
Copyright: BBC
Ukrainian to be the only state language - Kyiv

Earlier we heard from a Russian negotiator that no progress had been fabricated in Russia-Ukraine talks - now Ukraine's foreign minister has echoed this, underlining in a statement that at that place was equally nevertheless no consensus with Moscow on key issues.

Dmytro Kuleba also said that Ukrainian would remain the state'southward simply country language.

Russia has demanded protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. A meaning minority of Ukrainians use Russian as their first language.

Kuleba said Ukraine did not intend to relinquish its demands.

"Nosotros insist, first of all, on a ceasefire, security guarantees, and territorial integrity of Ukraine," he said .

Earlier Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had agreed on four out of the six main issues existence discussed during peace talks, just that territorial disputes on the eastern region of Donbas and the Crimea peninsula remained.
Spotify pulls out of Russian federation over new media laws

Copyright: Getty Images

Spotify is pulling out of Russia due to the country'south new laws on what media companies can broadcast or post online.

Published fabric deemed to be "simulated news" about Russian federation'due south invasion of Ukraine could lead to lengthy prison sentences under the new rules.

In a statement sent to media outlets, Spotify said the rules "further restricting admission to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalising certain types of news puts the rubber of Spotify's employees and possibly even our listeners at take chances".

"After carefully considering our options and the electric current circumstances, we take come to the hard decision to fully suspend our service in Russia."

Spotify is best-known as a music streaming platform, only has aggressively moved into podcasting equally part of its business organization model, with its library including a great many news and current diplomacy shows.

The company closed its Russian federation role earlier in March, and has not been able to sell its premium subscriptions in the country considering of restrictions put in place past payment providers amongst international sanctions.

This makes Spotify the latest in a long listing of major international company to pull out of Russia - including McDonald'south, Starbucks, Apple tree, Samsung, and many more.

Learn more than about which companies are pulling out of Russia hither.
Russian colonel killed by ain men - Western official

Paul Adams

BBC Diplomatic correspondent

2 more senior Russian commanders have been killed - one of them patently died afterwards beingness attacked past his own men, a Western official has said.

The commanding officeholder of the 37th Motor Rifle Brigade, a colonel, was deliberately run over by his own troops equally a result of the scale of losses taken by his brigade, the official said.

"That just gives an insight into perchance some of the morale challenges that Russian forces are having," they added.

However other reports suggested the colonel - named as Yuri Medvedev - had suffered leg injuries and had been evacuated to Belarus.

A seventh general (commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army) was likewise killed. The Kremlin has not nonetheless responded to the claims.

The BBC has not been able to confirm this independently.