Adam Durbin
BBC Verify Live senior journalist

We’ll be closing our live coverage for the week shortly, so here’s a brief overview of what we’ve been reporting on today.

The verification team has been taking a close look at strikes in Ukraine, after Russia launched more than 400 drones and nearly 20 missiles overnight. We’ve examined:

• Damage to residential buildings in the capital Kyiv, where at least six people were killed
• A deadly strike on a market in a city in the Odesa region which killed at least two people
• Which districts of Kyiv and regions of Ukraine were hit
• The broader context of Russia’s aerial strike campaign since 2022

Keep an eye-out on BBC News social media accounts later for our reporter Olga Robinson’s analysis of what’s going on in Ukraine.

Plus, our fact-checkers have been digging into the numbers behind the resident doctors’ strike in England, including examining claims about their pay being nearly 20% lower than in 2008 and how many specialism training places are available for medical school graduates.

BBC Verify Live will be back on Monday, but our colleagues here in London and in Washington DC will be working tonight and over the weekend to inform the BBC’s coverage.

Anthony Reuben and Lucy Dady
BBC Verify

Image source, Getty Images

Speaking about the resident doctors’ strike on BBC Radio 4 this morning, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) council Dr Tom Dolphin, said: “For most people in the economy, pay has come back up to the value that it had in 2008.”

Whether or not that is true depends on what measure of inflation you’re using and whether you work in the private or public sector.

The BMA likes to use the retail prices index (RPI) as we discussed at 11:31.

If you look at average earnings figures for total pay since 2008 adjusted for RPI, it has gone down by 11%, so has still not recovered to 2008 levels.

If you adjust with the consumer prices index (CPI), which is a more normal measure to use, overall pay has gone up 2% since 2008.

If you just look at the private sector using CPI it has gone up 3% and in the public sector it has gone down 1%.

So using CPI suggests pay has caught up with 2008 levels, but not in the public sector.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been bringing you verified footage from Ukraine after a country-wide Russian air attack.

The Ukrainian Air Force said 430 drones and 19 missiles were used in the bombardment.

It’s part of a wider Russian campaign to target Ukrainian cities and put pressure on ordinary Ukrainians as cold weather settles in.

Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 we saw the number of drones and missiles launched overnight towards Ukrainian regions reach its peak in July.

BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring have compiled reports by the Ukrainian Air Force and the Institute for the Study of War to chart the number of drones and missiles fired towards Ukraine.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist, reporting from Delhi

We've been reviewing CCTV footage and speaking to experts to understand the nature of the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort on Monday.

The video shows a two-second flash and a fireball rising six to eight meters (20 to 26ft) into the air.

Three explosive-impact experts say the footage was characteristic of a low-intensity blast. But a fourth regards it as powerful, given one verified video shows it partially tore the roof off a nearby car.

Three of the four did not rule out the possibility a gas cylinder could have been involved.

Dr Sam Rigby, a blast protection engineering professor at the University of Sheffield, believes it could have been caused by a homemade device about the size of a "car boot or a suitcase”. He says the size of the fireball and other evidence indicates the explosive contained or set-off a large amount of combustible material.

That does not explain why no shrapnel was found at the scene, but experts say this alone cannot rule out the deliberate use of explosives over an accident.

Image source, ANI

Roger Warren, a security expert at Simon Fraser University, says the blast could still have involved a small homemade device which possibly then triggered gas cylinders or a petrol tank.

Professor Gareth Appleby-Thomas, an expert in materials for defence applications at Cranfield University, tells me the lack of shrapnel may simply mean the “device was only contained in a light platform or container”, rather than a heavily cased bomb.

He adds that there is not sufficient evidence in the video to make a conclusion about the source of the blast.

Authorities are continuing to investigate the incident.

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

We have been analysing the latest footage of overnight strikes in Ukraine. The main focus of the air attacks was the capital city Kyiv.

Vitali Klitschko, the local mayor, says nearly all districts in the city were targeted with missiles and drones. Damage has been reported to medical facilities, energy infrastructure and residential buildings.

And it wasn’t just Kyiv that was hit. As we reported earlier on BBC Verify Live a local market was struck in the city of Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s south.

The Ukrainian Air Force also said the regions of Kharkiv, Poltava and Cherkasy were also affected.

These strikes are part of a wider campaign to target Ukrainian cities and put pressure on ordinary Ukrainians as cold weather settles in.

Gerry Georgieva
BBC Verify researcher

One of the complaints of striking resident doctors is that there aren’t enough training places to help medical school graduates specialise.

Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier that there were thousands who can't get training posts and are "unable to become the specialists and the GPs of the future that we need".

This is true, according to the latest NHS England data on the number applying for and being offered posts in 2025, external.

There were more than 92,000 applications for just over 12,800 posts. One person can apply for more than one specialisation, so the number of unique applicants was 33,108.

Over a fifth of the overall applications were for GP training, but only one in five of these was successful.

The BMA has highlighted the “particular rise” in applications from international medical graduates for training places in recent years - doubling from 10,402 to 20,803 between 2023 and 2025.

The union has called for priority to be given to UK medical school graduates.

In the offer made to the BMA last week, the government suggested expanding training places by 2,000 over the next three years, 1,000 of which would be added for this year.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

You may have seen us refer to Nasa’s Firms platform as part of our work to check the veracity of material being shared online.

The US space agency’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms) uses orbiting satellites to detect thermal anomalies on the earth’s surface - in other words, active fires.

It allows users to track the spread of wildfires. For example, we’ve previously used it in our coverage of August’s North York Moors blaze in England.

More regularly we use Firms as part of our verification of social media content. For example, it can help us identify when a place has been hit by an air strike that causes an explosion and fire. We can use the data from Firms to cross-check whether images claiming to show the blast are from the same location.

This morning, Firms was helpful in indicating where there have been active fires in Russia’s Novorossiysk city after a reported Ukrainian attack overnight.

Firms visualises heat-source data by placing red rectangles on satellite maps - which you can see in areas of Novorossiysk below.

Our geolocated videos showed fires burning in locations that matched with fires picked up by Firms.

Image source, NASA Firms

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

We’re keen to hear what you think the BBC Verify team should be looking into.

We're interested in investigating claims you may've seen online in your social feeds. We're also keen to know if you've think an image may have been made using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation.

You can also get in touch with BBC Verify if you've got a question about how we verify video posted online or work with satellite imagery.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Sherie Ryder and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

Image source, Telegram/Oleh Kiper

In Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, pictures and videos of the aftermath of an apparent Russian drone strike in the city of Chornomorsk have emerged on social media this morning.

The head of Odesa’s military administration Oleh Kiper says on Telegram two people have been killed in a market and at least seven more injured - some seriously.

We’ve verified images and video showing a heavily damaged shop front and emergency services responding to what appears to be the consequences of an explosion, including extinguishing a car fire.

Nicholas Barrett and Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify

Resident doctors (formerly known as junior doctors) who are members of the British Medical Association (BMA) have begun a five-day strike in England.

Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA Council told BBC Radio 4 this morning: “We've got pay that is still a fifth down on the value that it had in 2008.”

To make this claim the BMA has adjusted resident doctors’ pay for inflation using the Retail Prices Index (RPI) rather than the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) which is more commonly used.

The RPI measure usually shows prices are rising faster than CPI - in part because it includes housing costs. RPI lost its status as a national statistic in 2013, external because of problems with the way it is calculated.

Measured using RPI, resident doctors’ pay is 19% lower than it was in 2008. But measured using CPI, it’s 7% lower.

Since 2023, pay for resident doctors has increased by 28.9%. They have been offered 5.4% for the current financial year.

You can find out more about it in this video from Ben Chu.

Sherie Ryder and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

Image source, X/@EuromaidanPR

We’ve been looking at images and video showing the aftermath from a wave of Russian drone and missile strikes on Kyiv overnight, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says killed at least four people and injured dozens more.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, says on his Telegram account that nearly every district in Ukraine’s capital came under attack.

One verified photo circulating on social media last night shows an apartment block in the Svyatoshynskyi area of the city with its windows blown out. Another captures a different high-rise building with smoke rising from the roof in the Desnyans'kyi district.

More footage has emerged on social media this morning and we’ve geolocated a video of a third damaged residential building, also in Svyatoshynskyi district.

Reverse image searches of the pictures indicate the pictures were first posted online recently.

Emma Pengelly & Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

Image source, Telegram/Supernova+

Images of large explosions in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Territory surfaced online last night, after a reported Ukrainian attack.

We’ve verified two videos showing a fireball on the southern coast of the city, as well as a photo of a blast in the general direction of Novorossiysk port to the east.

We’ve geolocated all the footage by matching road layouts, business signs, car parks and fencing to street-level images on public mapping tools.

The locations of the explosions also match heat signatures picked up by Nasa’s satellite-based platform Firms yesterday and this morning.

Krasnodar Territory governor Veniamin Kondratyev says on Telegram that Novorossiysk saw the most impact from drones in the region, including debris damaging at least four apartment blocks, two private homes and injuring one man.

He adds that fragments also hit an oil depot, a cargo container terminal, coastal facilities and a civilian vessel, wounding three crew members.

Russia’s Defence Ministry says its air defences “intercepted and destroyed” 216 Ukrainian drones, including 66 downed over Krasnodar Territory.

Ukraine has not yet commented on the reported strikes.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to today’s live page.

Russia has carried out a wave of attacks on Ukraine overnight which President Volodymyr Zelensky said had killed at least four people. Zelensky added that about 430 drones and 18 missiles were used in attacks on “civilian infrastructure”.

We’re gathering and verifying material being posted from Ukraine to get a better idea of the impact from the strikes.

Elsewhere our team is checking on a reported strike at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Reuters news agency is reporting that oil exports there have been halted as a result.

Our fact-check team is looking into resident doctors’ pay as members of the British Medical Association (BMA) begin a five-day strike at hospitals across England. While the government says it’s raised pay by nearly 30% over the past three years, the BMA argues salaries are a fifth lower than they were in 2008, once inflation is taken into account.

And we’ve been seeking experts’ opinions on what caused Monday’s car blast in Delhi that killed at least eight people near the historic Red Fort. We’ll bring you more on that shortly.