Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

We’re about to close this live page after a busy day verifying material, especially out of Ukraine.

This morning we geolocated the aftermath of a missile and drone attack in Kyiv, which we now know killed 13 people.

We confirmed footage out of the city of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region - which Moscow says it has captured. We also geolocated the aftermath of an explosion in the Kramatorsk area of eastern Ukraine.

Elsewhere, we presented the findings of our investigation about a British 999 call handler's voice being cloned by a Russian network using AI.

New housing statistics figures revealed that the number new homes in England fell during Labour's first year in office. We updated our housing tracker - which you access here - to find out about homes being built in your area.

And as the clock ticks down to Trump's tariff deadline, we also looked at what impact President Trump’s tariffs are having on Americans.

BBC Verify Live will be back on Friday.

Paul Brown and Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify

Image source, National Police of Ukraine

We’ve been looking at reports from this morning of an explosion in the Kramatorsk area of eastern Ukraine, which left a building severely damaged and one person dead, according to local officials. The city of Kramatorsk is just 35km away from Chasiv Yar that Russia claims to have seized.

Looking at several clips on social media we were able to match focal points such as a major roundabout and a row of trees that are also visible on Google Maps.

In between some of the trees, we also spotted the pillars belonging to the Palace of Culture and Technology - a key building in the city. From there we were able to identify which nearby building was damaged.

With the help of some old photos we found on Google Maps, from 2019, we could match up a chimney, trees and flag poles to an image we saw in one clip from , externalT, externalelegram, external.

From there we were able to pinpoint the location to a building on a main road that runs through the centre of the city.

Image source, Telegram

The cause of the explosion remains unconfirmed, although the head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration, Vadym Filashkin, has blamed Russia.

We’ll continue to monitor for more updates this afternoon.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Russian Ministry of Defence

Moscow says its forces have captured the city of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine's Donetsk region, as we reported earlier.

The Russian defence ministry has now released drone footage of the city, which reveals widespread destruction after nearly 18 months of fighting.

The pictures below compare satellite imagery from Google taken in May 2022, with footage of the same location in the defence ministry’s clip from today.

Despite the extensive damage, its seizure would be a major win for Russian forces.

The capture of Chasiv Yar - if confirmed - would "pave the way for further Russian advances in the Donetsk region, threatening cities like Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk", Jaroslava Barbieri from Chatham House told us.

She added: "The Kremlin wants to take all of the Donetsk region before the end of the summer offensive amid growing pressure from the US to reach a ceasefire.”

On Monday, President Trump said he would give President Putin "ten or 12 days" to reach a ceasefire agreement over Ukraine.

Image source, Google

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, PA Media

Almost one fifth of prisons in England and Wales were given the worst performance rating, according to the latest figures, external for the year to March 2025.

A total of 22 prisons were given a rating of “serious concern” as part of their official assessments, which measures a prison’s performance against criteria including safety and security. This is the highest number of prisons to receive this rating since records began.

The report added that capacity issues within the prison estate were likely to have contributed to poor performance.

Overcrowding in prisons remains a serious concern - with separate figures published today, external showing a quarter of the prison population is living in crowded conditions such as sharing cells designed for one person.

A big reason for the overcrowding is the rising number of people waiting to go to trial or be sentenced - known as the remand population. In June this year, more than 17,700 prisoners made up this group, which was about a fifth of the total prison population and near record levels.

The government has pledged to address the crisis by building 14,000 more prison places and changing the way prison sentences are handed out.

Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist

Thankfully, for millions of people, there was no tsunami following yesterday’s earthquake off Russia’s eastern coast.

However, any breaking news event like yesterday’s will highlight the need to sort real, contemporary images from old ones and fakes.

Here’s a quick roundup of how we did so.

Verification work by Paul Brown and Peter Mwai

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

At BBC Verify the disinformation team is often looking for stories that shows how manipulated content spills into real life.

The story of Aaron - a NHS 999 call operator from Preston - who’s become an unlikely target of a Russian influence operation is a prime example.

But it wouldn’t have been possible to bring it to light without months of tracking suspicious online activity, along with help from independent researchers.

We’ve been tracking the Russian-linked disinformation network behind Aaron’s fake video for a few years. But in May, we were alerted to a change in the Russian network’s tactics by two volunteer groups - dTeam and Antibot4navalny.

While the disinformation network often uses AI, the voice cloning of British police officers and NHS workers appeared to be a lot more convincing than what we are used to seeing.

And, for the first time, we saw everyday members of the British public being targeted too.

Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent

Donald Trump has set a deadline of 1 August for scores of countries to do an agreement with him to reduce the tariffs their exporters will face when sending goods to America.

Trump has already announced agreements with several major US trading partners - including the UK, Vietnam, Japan, the European Union and South Korea - which reduce some of their tariff levels.

Others, including Canada, Mexico and India, are scrambling to do the same before the Washington-imposed deadline.

But even if more deals are announced in the coming hours, the data shows that Trump has already delivered a profound shock to the global trading system since returning to the White House.

You can read more of our analysis here.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

We’re continuing to closely monitor the situation in Gaza.

A video filmed from a UN aid convoy yesterday and published last night, external, shows gunfire spraying in the sand very close to the feet of Palestinians waiting to get aid.

In the video, gunfire can be heard and plumes of sand spray into the air showing its impact point, seconds before people in the crowd surge forwards towards the convoy. At least two children are visible among the group.

Image source, X

By matching a metal structure, a tree and some rubble visible at the start of the footage to other verified footage geolocated to the same spot, we’ve located the clip to an area 1.3km (0.8 miles) north of the Morag Corridor - an Israeli-occupied military road that runs between Khan Younis and Rafah.

This is also less than 500m from another Israeli military corridor - called Magin Oz.

High resolution satellite imagery isn’t yet available, but the crowd is large enough that it is visible even at low resolution.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

The number of new homes in England fell during Labour's first year in office, but applications to build more rose over the past six months.

BBC Verify's housing tracker shows 201,000 homes got their first Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) in the 12 months to June 2025, down 8% from the year before, continuing a fall that began under the Conservatives.

The government has set an ambitious target to deliver 1.5 million new homes in England by the end of this parliament - expected to be in 2029 if it runs a full five years.

To track the pledge we look at the number of EPCs issued. These are required by law for every new home so prospective buyers can find out how energy efficient it is.

EPCs, however, only tell us how many new homes were registered in total - they don’t account for demolitions.

That said, when you plot EPCs alongside another measure - net additional dwellings - you can see that they both show a very similar trend, as shown in the chart below.

You can see the figures for your area in our housing tracker

We’re now bringing you the video mentioned in our earlier post showing a building in Kyiv reportedly hit by Russian drone and missile strikes overnight.

The footage was posted by Ukrainian emergency services and shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Telegram

Russia's defence ministry has announced the capture of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine's Donetsk region, after well over a year of fighting.

The claim remains disputed, however, with a Ukrainian military spokesman advising "against considering the Russian Ministry of Defence as a source of information. They simply lie systematically."

The hilltop city is considered an important strategic location for further Russian advances in the area. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, paid a visit to the city in April last year.

Footage shared on the social media site Telegram shows flags of Russia and the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic being waved from ruined buildings in various locations in the city.

This is not proof of capture but it does indicate Russian presence in several parts of the city.

It is perhaps notable that in some of the locations, the flag is being waved from the windows of the lower storeys of high-rise buildings, rather than the roof, suggesting that the soldiers seen have chosen to remain in relative cover.

Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist

We're reviewing images out of western Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, following reports of overnight drone and missile strikes killing six people and injuring dozens.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv mayor Vitality Klitschko are among those sharing images from the scene.

We’re confident the material posted by Zelensky is from this morning. The images haven’t appeared publicly before and the weather matches. We’ve also geolocated the partially collapsed building seen in the video.

Image source, State Emergency Service of Ukraine

We're now turning our attention to a video posted by Klitschko - as well as images reportedly from Bucha on the Kyiv outskirts.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine has been taken by Russian forces. The town has been the focus of intense Russian attacks since February.

At least two open source-focused websites have reported Russian flags being flown there. The city is located on route to a larger industrial area of the Donbas and is seen as strategically important. We saw many images from there as a staging post for the Ukrainian army in their defence of nearby Bakhmut in 2023.

However, the presence of flags alone do not mean control has been taken.

We’ll continue to review images from Chasiv Yar and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify live editor

Welcome to today’s BBC Verify Live.

Right now our verification team are reviewing images and videos coming out of Ukraine following reports that at least six people were killed and more than 50 injured after drones struck Kyiv overnight. We’ll bring you what we’ve found shortly.

An investigation, led by our disinformation expert Olga Robinson, has revealed that the identities of British public sector workers have been cloned using AI by a Russian-linked disinformation campaign.

Our fact-checking team, meanwhile, has been taking a closer look at the impact of President Trump’s tariffs and how they’re already impacting Americans.

And later this morning our data team will be updating the BBC Verify housing tracker, which looks at the latest details around the number of new homes being built in England against the government’s target to deliver 1.5m by the end of the current Parliament.