Image source, UK Parliament

Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey says “this is the most serious security crisis Europe has face since the Cold War”.

He says people in Ukraine “face an utterly unprecedented threat” with two thirds of Russian forces built up on its borders.

He says there is unified political support in the UK for Ukraine sovereignty in the face of this continuing Russian aggression.

He adds the government has Labour's “full support” in helping Ukraine defend itself and in pursuing diplomacy.

Paul Adams
BBC diplomatic correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Western officials say there is evidence of “very serious doubts” among senior Russian military and security officials about the wisdom of attacking Ukraine.

They won’t comment on the nature of their intelligence, except to say that they are “perfectly confident in our sources on that,” and that it would be surprising if such doubts did not exist.

Needless to say, such claims by western officials are almost impossible to verify.

The officials say that despite talk of possible diplomatic progress, the overall picture remains “very dark”.

More Russian troops are moving to within striking distance of Ukraine. Two thirds of the forces massed are within 50km (31 miles) of the border, and of those, around half are now “tactically deployed” (a state of readiness that cannot be sustained for prolonged periods).

Asked if they thought Putin had given the order to invade, they said they did not know, but that his plans had been unfolding “for weeks and months” already.

Image source, HoC

Wallace says the UK government is urging President Putin, “for the sake of his own people and even at this 11th hour to rule out the invasion of Ukraine and re-commit to a diplomatic process for us to address the perceptions of the Kremlin.”

Image source, UK Parliament

Ben Wallace says these are not the actions of a Russian government fulfilling its repeated declarations that it has no intention of invading Ukraine.

He says “we have seen… the Russian playbook being implemented in a way that gives us strong cause for concern that President Putin is still committed to an invasion.”

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace says “All the indicators point to increasing numbers and readiness of Russian forces.”

He says the pledge to withdraw Russian troops from Belarus at the end of their joint military drills “was not carried out”.

“The exercise has now been extended until further notice,” he says.

Ben Wallace tells MPs in the last 48 hours "contrary to Kremlin assurances we have seen a continued increase in troop numbers and a change in force disposition moving from holding areas to potential launch locations."

Image source, HoC

Ben Wallace says their is “strong cause for concern that President Putin is still committed to an invasion”.

He tells the Commons it would be a “tragic course of events leading to a humanitarian crisis”.

Wallace urges the Russian president to commit to a diplomatic solution.

Ben Wallace is making a statement to MPs on the latest situation regarding the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

He says the are now more the 110 battalion groups "massed around" Ukraine's borders with Russia and Belarus.

In addition he says there are two amphibious groups and nine cruise missiles equipped Russia ships in the Black Sea fleet.

He says there are a further four cruise missile capable vessels in the Caspian Sea.

Vladimir Putin concludes a meeting of the Russian security council by saying a decision on recognising the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" as independent states will be made today.

Russia-backed rebels in those areas - located in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region - have been fighting the Ukrainian military since 2014 but Moscow has not officially recognised their self-declared republics.

Ukraine and the West fear that if this happens, it could lead Moscow to openly send military forces into the area.

Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People's Republic, and Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the Luhansk People's Republic, have appealed to Putin to recognise their regions.

Earlier in the council meeting, top officials including Sergei Naryshkin, chief of foreign intelligence, and Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said Russia should do so.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is giving a statement to parliament on the Ukraine crisis.

It's understood he'll also take questions from MPs in the Commons.

Stay with us for the latest updates.

Image source, Reuters

We've just heard that Russia's foreign minister will meet his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian in Paris on Friday to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.

It’s understood Sergei Lavrov will help lay the groundwork for a mooted summit between US President Joe Biden and Russia's President Putin.

France's foreign ministry says the meeting will be held on condition that no Russian invasion of Ukraine is launched in the meantime.

Image source, TASS/Getty Images

More now on the announcement that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet in Geneva on Thursday.

During an emergency meeting of the Kremlin's security council, Lavrov said he had spoken with Blinken about Russian security demands.

Moscow wants Western assurance that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato, also demanding that it roll back its forces from eastern Europe.

But Lavrov told Vladimir Putin that Western countries are "not ready to take in our central proposals, especially everything about the expansion of Nato eastwards".

But he added that dialogue with the West must continue.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says he will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday in Geneva, as tensions soar over a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of his Commons statement on the situation in Ukraine, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace says Russia must not be allowed to influence Ukraine's territorial integrity.

"We are committed to defending regional security," Wallace says.

"We must not allow Russia's destabilising behaviour to influence the territorial integrity of any other sovereign state. The UK remains steadfast in its support for Ukraine," he adds.

Two separatist leaders from Ukraine have appealed to Vladimir Putin to recognise their "people's republics" as independent states.

Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People's Republic, and Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the Luhansk People's Republic, are reported to be in Moscow.

Their appeals have been shown by Russian state TV.

Putin told his security council it was necessary to consider the appeals.

"Our objective, the objective of our meeting today is to listen to colleagues and decide on our next steps in this area," Putin said.

If he agrees, it could lead to Moscow openly sending military forces into both regions, using the claim that it is intervening as an ally to protect them from Ukraine.

A no-fly zone declared by Russia over the Sea of Azov has come into effect.

Moscow issued the NOTAM (Notice to airmen) late on Sunday night barring commercial airliners from the area, which borders the crucial Ukrainian port of Mariupol, close to the line of contact between Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist forces.

The move comes as a flotilla of Russian ships entered the sea on Sunday.

On Monday, authorities in Kyiv announced that 10 European airlines have suspended or cancelled flights to the country.

However, Infrastructure Minister Oleksander Kubrakov insisted that Ukrainian airspace remained safe and open.

Ceasefire violations in Ukraine's Russian-backed breakaway eastern territories rose heavily towards the end of last week.

Men of fighting age in the self-declared people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are being put on stand-by.

International monitors report a "dramatic increase" in attacks along the line dividing rebel and government forces.

Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and four injured by shelling on Saturday, the first deaths to be reported in weeks.

Paul Adams
BBC diplomatic correspondent

On one of the many Whatsapp groups now populated by hundreds of foreign journalists covering this crisis, beleaguered Ukrainian officials are trying desperately to stem the flow of bizarre and potentially explosive allegations coming from pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas.

This morning they’ve been forced to deny reports that a Russian border post was attacked by Ukrainian forces (an allegation accompanied by a rather sorry looking shed in the middle of woodland) and that five Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and two Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers destroyed when they strayed across the border into Russian territory near Rostov.

There is no evidence to suggest either of these things happened, but officials are forced to deny each any every allegation, no matter how absurd or unlikely.

Orla Guerin
BBC News, eastern Ukraine

Cancer, a war that has dragged on for eight years, and the threat of a Russian invasion - Larysa is living with them all, with fortitude and humour. We met the 65-year-old queuing in a hangar, at the Novotroitske crossing point in eastern Ukraine.

It sits on the "line of contact" - an almost 500km (310 mile) long fissure between Ukrainian government territory and two enclaves that have been held by Russian backed separatists since 2014. Families, communities, and services are divided by this line. The enduring conflict here on the eastern front has already claimed more than 14,000 lives - at least 3,000 of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

The self-styled Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) are recognised by no one - for now, not even the Kremlin - but they are home to about four million people. Larysa is one of them. She was wrapped up against the cold in a bright blue jacket, pink jumper, and matching woolly hat. She preferred not to use her last name.

It takes permission and patience to get from Ukrainian government territory to the other side. Larysa knows the drill.

"I do this every six months," she said. "I have been for a check-up at a hospital in Dnipro [in central Ukraine] and now I am going home to Donetsk."

As she waited for sniffer dogs to check her bag, she wasn't too concerned about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders.

"We have been bombed, and we have been through a lot," she said.

"I don't believe there will be an invasion, or if there is, it won't be a big one. That's my view as someone with intuition. I watch TV and what politicians say. I think all of this is just to keep us on our toes and stop us from getting too relaxed."

But Western leaders have long feared that President Vladimir Putin would fake a crisis in the Russian-backed rebel areas - or the appearance of one - to use as an excuse to invade. The seeds were sewn on Friday when rebel leaders announced that women and children would be evacuated over the border to Russia because Ukraine was planning to attack. Ukraine denied that and most civilians in those areas appear to have stayed put.

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A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told a media briefing that intelligence reports suggest Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to launch an invasion of Ukraine.

"The intelligence we are seeing suggests that Russia intends to launch an invasion and that President Putin's plan has already begun," the spokesman told reporters.

"We're seeing elements of the Russian playbook that we would expect to see in certain situations, starting to play out in real time."