Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

We’ll be closing this live page shortly, but there’s plenty more to come as the BBC Verify team in Washington will be keeping across comments from US President Donald Trump ahead of tomorrow’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. You can find the latest on that story here.

The team has also been verifying video of drone attacks on Russia, including explosions in the cities of Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don.

And we’ve been analysing footage of the flash flooding in northern India.

Earlier in the day, we dug into a raft of UK government data on economic growth, trade and NHS waiting times.

Our data team was also working on the A-level results - click here for five key takeaways from this year's exams.

BBC Verify Live will be back on Friday.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Here’s a quick recap of the four attacks on Russia that we’ve been able to confirm since this morning.

First we investigated a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil refinery in Volgograd which we were able to verify using heat signature data. Russian officials claim the fire at the site was caused by falling debris but the Ukrainian military say they targeted the Lukoil facility because it supplies Moscow’s forces.

Then we confirmed what appeared to be a Ukrainian long-range drone had hit a residential building in Rostov-on-Don. Russian officials say at least 13 people were injured.

Finally we found there had been two explosions in the Russian city of Belgorod, both of which were caught on CCTV. In one, a car drives towards a junction before it explodes and scatters debris across the road. The regional governor says it was hit by a Ukrainian drone.

In the second CCTV footage from Belgorod posted on the Telegram app, a drone is clearly visible as it enters the frame and then explodes next to a residential block.

Thomas Copeland and Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify

Image source, Daphne Tolis

We’ve been reviewing new satellite images of the wildfires across parts of southern Europe.

Combining the images captured from space with data from Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms), which detects active hot spots on the planet’s surface, gives us a good idea of where the fires are burning.

Below we’ve got two images of the Greek island of Chios - the top one shows the range of hot spots across the north-west of the island captured using information from Firms.

We can compare that with the satellite imagery showing smoke rising into the sky from the same parts of the island.

Combining sources like these helps us to accurately report on the impact of these wildfires.

Libby Rogers and Rob England
BBC Verify

Boys have outperformed girls in top grades at A-level for the first time since 2018 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It’s a close race though, with boys getting only 0.2 percentage points more A or A*’s.

We’ve been digging further into the data and found there’s been an increase in the number of students taking some science, maths and economics subjects. In these areas, girls have done worse than last year, while boys have held steady or improved.

In the five subjects which saw the biggest percentage increase in students (excluding smaller subjects) girls’ performance dipped by 1.1 percentage points overall, while boys’ performance increased by 0.4.

If girls had maintained their grades from last year in these subjects, they would have drawn level with boys overall.

Chemistry saw the biggest gap between girls’ and boys’ top grades in the five subjects seen in the chart above, at 5.2 percentage points in favour of boys.

Economics, where girls outperform boys, saw a fall in grades for both genders. But for girls it was a sharper drop of 1.5 percentage points, compared with 0.1 for boys.

You can see more analysis of A-level results day here.

Anthony Myers
BBC Verify

Image source, Getty Images

Trade figures for the UK published this morning give an idea of the potential impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

One of the key targets for Trump’s tariffs was cars. The trade deal the UK signed with the US that reduced the taxes on UK car exports came into effect on 30 June 2025.

In March, the UK exported £1bn worth of cars to the US. The June figure was £0.3bn.

Overall, exports of goods to the US fell by 15% to just below £4bn in June 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics, external. This was the lowest value seen since February 2022.

Over the last two years, the UK has exported about £5bn worth of goods per month to the US. That rose sharply in the months after Donald Trump was elected, peaking at just over £6bn in March, before falling steeply after his tariffs were announced in April.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Telegram

We’re continuing to gather and verify material being posted on the Telegram app and social media in Russia following a series of apparent attacks in the south and west of the country through the course of the day.

We’ve verified a second piece of CCTV footage which captures another explosion in the city of Belgorod, western Russia. We also haven’t been able to find earlier versions of it on the internet.

There is no sound attached to the video - which is a recording of a screen - but we do see the shadow of a drone before it enters the frame and explodes next to a residential block.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, external that between 11:00 and 14:00 Moscow time today (09:00 and 12:00 BST), 10 Ukrainian drones were “intercepted and destroyed” across Russia.

Eight were in the Belgorod region and two in Krasnodar Territory, southern Russia.

The Ukrainian armed forces have so far not commented on these and other incidents today apart from saying it attacked an oil refinery in Volgograd overnight.

Emma Pengelly and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

We’ve been looking at a CCTV recording which shows the moment a car explodes and crashes in the Russian city of Belgorod close to the border with Ukraine.

In the video a white car moves towards a junction, alongside other vehicles, before it explodes and scatters debris across the road. It comes to a stop nearby and two people get out while a third is pulled from the wreckage by passers-by before the vehicle bursts into flames.

The footage was shared by the governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, who said the car had been struck by a Ukrainian drone. Ukraine has not yet commented on the incident and we cannot see from the footage what caused the blast.

We’re confident the CCTV is authentic because we’ve matched features including pedestrian crossings, lampposts, buildings and pavements to street level images on Yandex, the Russian equivalent of the Google search engine. We’ve also looked at other footage showing the aftermath which tallies with the CCTV recording.

Gladkov first posted photos of the scene at 08:14 local time (06:14 BST) and we can see from the length and position of the shadows, with the sun in the east, that the explosion happened in the early morning. Plus the weather, which is clear and dry, is consistent with reports for the Belgorod area this morning.

Becky Dale and Callum Thomson
BBC Verify

Image source, PA Media

As well as analysing this year’s A-level results, the data journalists at BBC Verify have been looking at new waiting time figures from NHS England.

The government has set a near-term target to address the long waits faced by patients.

By March 2026 it wants to see 65% of patients in England waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment.

Today's data shows that in June 61.5% of patients across England had been waiting 18 weeks or less. In percentage point terms this is a slight improvement on May when it was 60.9%. However the raw numbers of patients waiting overall has risen by 10,000, to 7.37m.

In this latest month of data about 100 trusts out of 135 we are tracking made at least some progress towards their individual targets, but there is still work to be done ahead of next March.

NHS trusts have individual targets to reach - 32 have to get to 60%, whilst another 103 have a target that is five points higher than their figure for November 2024. This is because they were already at or nearly at 60% at that point.

You can see how your local trust is doing in our updated tracker.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

The UK economy grew by 0.3% in the second quarter of year. That’s down from growth of 0.7% in the first three months of the year, but better than many economists expected.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said “today’s figures only fuel my ambition to deliver on our Plan for Change”.

The, external , externalPlan for Change’s, external “milestones” linked to growth were:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per head
• Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) per head
• Regional GDP per head

Reeves’s plan undertook to deliver the ”highest sustained growth in the G7”. Our economics editor Faisal Islam has had a look at how the UK is getting on compared with the rest of the G7 group of big economies.

We only have updated statistics for one of the chancellor’s growth targets today - GDP per head. That rose, external 0.2% between April and June. The government wants it to be higher by the end of the parliament - likely to be in 2029.

Real Household Disposable Income per head, external has not been updated for the second quarter but in the first three months of this year it fell by 1%.

And the government is also targeting regional GDP per head, but the latest figures for that, external only go up to 2023.

Sebastian Vandermeersch and Olga Robinson
BBC Verify

Image source, X

We’ve verified footage of what looks like a Ukrainian long-range drone striking a residential building in central Rostov-on-Don, a Russian city more than 200km (124 miles) from the front line.

Russian officials have blamed the attack on Ukraine and said at least 13 people were injured. The drone appears to be a civilian aircraft that has been converted into a long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) - part of a growing trend where Ukraine uses modified light aircraft for strikes deep inside Russia.

These drones are typically fitted with specialised compartments which carry explosives and detonate upon impact. We confirmed the location by matching the distinctive buildings in the video to satellite imagery. Reverse image searches indicate the footage first appeared online today.

If confirmed, this would be a rare example of a Ukrainian drone hitting a residential building inside Russia.

The majority of reported Ukrainian strikes we’ve been analysing in the past few months have targeted energy and industrial facilities and Russia’s logistics rather than civilian infrastructure.

Previously we brought you details about our verification work on the impact of intense rain across India’s Himalayan states.

Here is one of the videos - posted on social media by the Indian army - that we have verified in full.

It shows floodwater rushing into a construction site in Himachal Pradesh state, washing away buildings, vehicles and equipment. The Indian army said there were no casualties from this incident.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Indian Army on X

Several parts of northern India have been bit by heavy rainfall and flash flooding since the beginning of this month, causing severe damage across the Himalayan states.

We’ve verified two dramatic videos from Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh state, which shows the moment a flash flood swept through a riverside area on Wednesday evening following a cloudburst.

In the first video, floodwater is seen rushing into a construction site next to a river where there are buildings with blue roofs. The floodwaters sweep away some of the buildings along with vehicles and construction equipment.

The second video, filmed moments later, shows those same blue-coloured roofs floating in the water. Several people are seen running to safety, while in the background, water rushes down from the mountains into the river. Those on higher ground can be heard whistling loudly - a signal commonly used in the region to alert people to danger.

We've verified where the footage was filmed by matching the topography and mountain features with Google Earth imagery. Satellite imagery from the specialist company Planet Labs shows the blue-roofed buildings at the location.

The Indian army has confirmed no-one died in the incident and those affected have been rescued and brought to safety.

Peter Mwai
BBC Verify senior journalist

We have been looking at images said to show the aftermath of a reported overnight Ukrainian drone attack which has struck an oil refinery in the Volgograd region in southern Russia.

In the images, which we have confirmed were filmed in Volgograd city’s Krasnoarmeysky district, we can see a plume of smoke rising to the sky from the direction of an oil refinery owned by Russian oil giant Lukoil.

We have verified a night-time image by matching the layout and shape of nearby residential blocks to satellite imagery. We also have a daytime picture where the buildings and a riverside park can be matched with satellite and Google Street View imagery.

Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms) which detects active hot spots on the planet’s surface captured heat signatures in the area overnight.

Volgograd regional governor Andrey Bocharov said Russia had repelled a Ukrainian drone attack and the fire at the refinery was caused by falling debris. “There are no casualties," he said in a statement, external.

The Ukrainian military said it targeted the site because it supplied fuel to the Russian military.

Ukraine has been frequently targeting oil refineries and energy facilities in Russia during recent weeks.

Image source, NASA

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning from BBC Verify and welcome to our daily live page bringing updates on the stories we're verifying, fact-checking and analysing today.

We've been collating material since first thing following reports that a Russian oil refinery is on fire following an apparent drone strike overnight. Russian local officials say the blaze was caused by falling drone debris. The Ukrainians have yet to comment.

Elsewhere, monsoon rains have brought flooding to parts of northern India and we're verifying video to see how widespread the damage is.

Plus there's a lot of data coming out today for our journalists to get into - not just A-levels (you can follow results day live here) but also UK trade figures and the latest on NHS waiting times in England - if there's a story in those we'll bring you updates here.