The impact of the crisis in Ukraine is illustrated in this emotional interview with a Ukrainian mother who has spoken to the BBC about the moment she fled her home with her 10-month-old baby.

Liza Grach, who had to leave her husband behind, said she took the decision so her child could "sleep well" and won't hear "bombs and explosions".

Watch more here:

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has been speaking to journalists on a conference call, during which he said Russia planned to ride out sanctions imposed by Western countries that have sent the rouble tumbling.

"The Western sanctions on Russia are hard, but our country has the necessary potential to compensate [for] the damage," Mr Peskov said on Monday.

He added that "today Putin will be working on economic questions" and meeting key ministers including the finance minister and central bank governor.

It comes after the UK, along with the US and EU, cut off Russia's banks from financial markets in the West, stopping dealings with the central bank, state-owned investment funds and the finance ministry.

As a result, Russia's central bank has more than doubled its key interest rate to 20% from 9.5%.

It marks a bid to halt the rapid fall in the value of Russia's currency the rouble against the US dollar, which threatens to wipe out its buying power and destroy the savings of ordinary Russians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging the European Union to grant his country "immediate" membership.

"Our goal is to be together with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be on an equal footing. I'm sure it's fair. I'm sure it's possible," he said.

In a video statement Zelensky also urged Russian soldiers to lay down their weapons.

"Abandon your equipment. Get out of here. Don't believe your commanders. Don't believe your propagandists. Just save your lives," he said.

The Ukrainian leader also said authorities would release convicts with combat experience so that they could help defend the country.

"We have taken a decision which is not easy from the moral point of view, but which is useful from the point of view of our defences," he said.

Would Putin push the nuclear button?published at 10:32 Greenwich Mean Time 28 February 2022

10:32 GMT 28 February 2022

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow Correspondent

So many times, I've thought: "Putin would never do this." Then he goes and does it.

"He'd never annex Crimea, surely?" He did.

"He'd never start a war in the Donbas." He did.

"He'd never launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine." He has.

The phrase "would never do" doesn't seem to apply to Vladimir Putin.

And that raises an uncomfortable question: "He’d never press the nuclear button first... would he?"

It's not a theoretical question. Russia's leader has just put his country's nuclear forces on "special" alert, complaining of "aggressive statements" over Ukraine by Nato leaders.

When he announced on TV his "special military operation", he delivered a chilling warning: "To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside - if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history."

"Putin's words sound like a direct threat of nuclear war," says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, chief editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

"This is a threat that if Russia isn't treated as he wants, then everything will be destroyed."

If Putin did choose a nuclear option, would anyone in his close circle try to dissuade him? Or stop him?

"Russia's political elites are never with the people," says Muratov. "They always take the side of the ruler."

And in Putin's Russia the ruler is all-powerful.

• Read Steve's analysis in full

Image source, FlightRadar24.com

Russian airlines are being forced to take a roundabout route to and from its Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea as European Union nations shut their airspace to Russia's aircraft.

Kaliningrad, a 15,000 sq km (9,320 sq miles) piece of land that belongs to Russia, is located 300 km west of the mainland and is sandwiched between the Baltic and EU member states Lithuania and Poland.

Instead of flying directly over Latvia and Lithuania, Russian planes are now forced to fly north towards St Petersburg then around the Baltic coast.

Canada has become the latest country, alongside EU nations and Britain, to ban Russian planes from its airspace.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

The prime minister will chair the cabinet and a meeting of the Cobra emergencies committee later to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Boris Johnson will hold further talks with world leaders about united action.

The government is looking at measures to support refugees, after its announcement last night for immediate family members of Ukrainians living in the UK.

Labour has said the offer should be broader.

Image source, Getty Images

As Ukraine's curfew lifted we heard from Kasenya who has spent more than 36 hours underground, and has just managed to get home and eat some breakfast.

She tells the BBC: "Finally I am at home and I can't describe how I am feeling, I'm happy to stay alive and safe and just have the possibility to see my splendid and beautiful Kyiv."

She says she feels "more or less safe" because she is back home.

When she looks out of the windows she sees "normal Ukrainian citizens" who are armed, brave and strong, trying to do everything they can to defend their city.

"Even underground everyone is trying to help one another and help our army to be stronger and to spread the world about our situation here," she says.

The United Nations' refugee agency says it's getting reports of people being blocked from getting onto trains in Ukraine.

A spokeswoman tweeted that the UNHCR is looking into this report, external and that 422,000 people had fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries.

The UNHCR "considers people fleeing the country as refugees", the spokeswoman added.

More than 100,000 people are now displaced within Ukraine, according to the UN body.

Sarah Rainsford
BBC Eastern Europe Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

For the first time, Ukraine's eastern city of Dnipro was woken by the stomach-churning wail of an air raid siren today.

By 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT) there'd been two - sending this city underground into bunkers, basements and garages. Some people had spent the night there with their children and pets.

The trigger for the alarm isn't clear. There's no direct assault on Dnipro but people are getting increasingly nervous as fighting to the south, north and east intensifies.

Armed patrols in the city now stop cars at random to check for potential Russian saboteurs. Yesterday we met families who'd fled heavy clashes in the town of Volnovakha, a key spot on the road south from Russia-controlled Donetsk to the port of Mariupol that Vladimir Putin's forces are battling to control.

The women and children were safe, given food and clothes and refuge, but deeply shaken. There'd been pro-Russian forces some 30km (19 miles) east of their town since 2014. But it hadn't directly affected them until President Putin openly ordered Russian troops across the border.

Only days ago, Nadezhda ran a pedicure salon - her son went to nursery and they both felt safe. Then a shell hit their neighbour's shed, and they fled west.

I've since met another mother here in Dnipro whose daughter is fighting in Volnovakha with the Ukrainian military. She showed me a photo, clearly proud but also in tears. She's terrified that Russian troops are about to overrun the town in their push to the south, and she feels utterly powerless.

Image source, Getty Images

Kyiv's defence ministry claims that more than 5,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the first four days of fighting in Ukraine.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Ukrainian officials said approximately 5,300 Russian troops have been killed, and claimed that 191 tanks, 29 fighter jets, 29 helicopters and 816 armoured personnel carriers have been destroyed by Ukraine's forces.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify these claims, though the UK's Ministry of Defence believes Russia has taken "heavy" casualties in the opening stages of the conflict.

The claims follow acknowledgements by the Russian defence ministry on Sunday that its forces have suffered losses, though officials did not provide an exact figure.

Meanwhile, independent observers said they had confirmed at least 94 civilian deaths during the first days of fighting.

It said the invasion had triggered "severe humanitarian consequences" and that casualties could be considerably higher.

Abdujalil Abdurasulov
BBC News, reporting from Kyiv

Ukrainian authorities have announced that their delegation has arrived at the Ukraine-Belarus border to start peace talks with the Russian delegation.

The main issue on their agenda, they say, is a ceasefire and withdrawal of troops from the Ukrainian territory.

Earlier it was reported that the talks kept being postponed due to logistical and safety issues.

In his address on Sunday, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that he didn’t expect a breakthrough from these talks.

But, he added, they should try and use this chance even if it is small, so that no-one can blame Ukraine for not trying to stop the war.

Image source, Getty Images

Russia woke up to its markets in turmoil as waves of economic sanctions and the liquidation of stakes in Russian state-owned companies furthered its economic isolation from the international business community.

• The rouble plummeted by 30% in opening market hours on Monday, pushing Russia to double its interest rate from 9.5% to 20%. The Russian currency hit a new, record low after it emerged over the weekend that some of the country's banks will be banned from using the Swift international payment system.

• The UK government has announced new sanctions against Russia's central bank, joining the US and the EU. British people and businesses are now banned from transacting with the Russian central bank, its finance ministry and its wealth fund, in a move is designed to cut off Moscow's major financial institutions from Western markets.

• The UK is fast-tracking regulations to target money-laundering by foreign oligarchs. Foreign owners of UK property must now declare and verify their identities. The measure is geared to stop overseas Russian criminals and oligarchs from using agents to create companies or buy property on their behalf.

• UK energy giant BP will offload its 19.75% stake in Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft - a holding that is estimated to be worth around $14bn (£10.4bn). Meanwhile Norwegian energy giant Equinor says it will start the process of divesting from its joint ventures in Russia.

A two-day curfew in Kyiv has been lifted as Russian troops advance within 30km (19 miles) of the Ukrainian capital.

Supermarkets in the city have re-opened and many people are out and about, having spent much of the past two days sheltering underground as Russian forces bombarded the city.

Russian artillery and rockets have hit residential areas of the capital, and many people have followed government advice and taken refuge in subway stations.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainian officials have denied Russian claims its forces have captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station - the largest in Europe.

Energoatom, Ukraine's state-run nuclear company, told the Interfax news agency that such claims by Moscow are "an absolute lie, a fake".

Earlier on Monday Russia said its troops had seized the plant and operations were continuing as normal.

Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov of the Russian defence ministry said in a statement: "Russian servicemen are fully guarding and controlling the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant."

He added: "Personnel continue to work on maintenance of facilities and control of the radioactive situation in the normal mode. The radioactive background is normal."

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is asked by BBC Breakfast what the UK is doing to help Ukrainian people fleeing the war.

He says that in the last few years Britain has been very generous to people coming from conflict or this type of oppression.

Asked if the UK is considering a move like the EU - which has unanimously voted that member states will take in Ukrainian refugees for three years with no need for a visa - he says that "was only announced yesterday".

He says: "We are open to all sorts of suggestions on how we can help people from Ukraine."

Image source, Getty Images

Hollywood actors paid tribute to Ukraine during the Screen Actors' Guild Awards on Sunday night, while noting leader Volodymyr Zelensky's roots in entertainment.

“The president of Ukraine was a comic," said actor Brian Cox while accepting an award. "He was a wonderful comic performer, and we should respect that for him and to come to the presidency was amazing."

Actress Jessica Chastain said during her speech that “my heart is with [those] fighting for their safety and their freedom", while TV host Greta Lee walked the red carpet in a blue and yellow dress - the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Mr Zelensky's journey from actor to president in 2019 mirrored the plot of his hit TV series Servant of the People, where he played a school teacher catapulted to the presidency.

Mr Zelensky has attracted widespread praise online for his calm leadership during the invasion. And as his popularity online skyrockets, footage of Mr Zelensky's TV show, as well as other appearances including a winning turn on Ukraine's Dancing with the Stars in 2006, have gone viral on Twitter.

A tweet by British actor Hugh Bonneville identifying Mr Zelensky as the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian version of the film has also gone viral.

Image source, Getty Images

If you're just joining us, here are the latest key developments in Ukraine:

• Despite Russian troops taking up positions just 30km (19 miles) away from the capital, Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands and a two-day curfew in the city has been lifted
• The city of Chernihiv in the north-east has faced heavy shelling from Russian troops overnight, but remains in Ukrainian hands
• Russia's defence ministry has admitted its forces have suffered losses during its invasion of Ukraine, having claimed for days that it had suffered no casualties
• Negotiators for Kyiv and Moscow are arriving in Belarus for peace talks, though President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that he does not expect the discussions to yield results
• Meanwhile, reports overnight suggest that Belorussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is preparing to deploy some of his soldiers to join the Russian invasion
• Elsewhere, Moscow's central bank is racing to contain the impact of western sanctions on the Russian economy by hiking interest rates and banning brokers from selling securities held by foreigners
• And UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has banned British financial institutions from transactions with the Russian central bank, foreign ministry and the country's sovereign wealth fund

Russia's President Putin announced his nuclear forces are on high alert to remind the world he has a deterrent and to distract from what's going wrong in Ukraine, the UK's defence secretary says.

Ben Wallace told BBC Breakfast Putin's actions have been condemned by the international community.

"He can't miss the fact that his only best friend at the moment seems to be the President of Belarus... he must realise he's definitely on the wrong side of history here," he says.

He says the UK does not see anything that is a change in Russia's nuclear posture.

He says Britain is also a nuclear power and Putin will know anything involving a nuclear weapon has an equal or greater response from the West.

He says the UK will not do anything to escalate the nuclear situation but "this is a battle of rhetoric and we just have to make sure we manage it properly".

Russian forces are under pressure in Ukraine and set to become more violent, the UK's defence secretary says.

"The Ukrainians are putting up a very strong fight," Ben Wallace told BBC Breakfast.

He says Russia's President Vladimir Putin has made a "miscalculation" by convincing himself the Ukrainian people were waiting to be liberated.

That means the Russians must reset their plan, slow down or even play for time.

"One of the fears everyone should have is does he know what's going on in Ukraine? Are people actually telling him the truth?" he says.

Wallace says the Russian federation army is behind schedule, they are taking significant casualities and they are feeling public rejection in parts of the Russian system including protests back home.

"But the Russian handbook is to get more violent and commit more forces because fundamentally in the Russian doctrine the lives of their own soldiers matter much less than in other armed forces," he says.

"We have to brace ourselves for what may come next which could be ruthless indiscriminate bombing of cities and the propelling forward of soldiers and high casualty levels and that's going to be horrific."

Image source, Getty Images

The UK has announced a ban on transactions involving Russia's Central Bank, in the latest move to cut Moscow's financial institutions off from western markets.

The measures will also ban British financial institutions from transactions with Moscow's finance ministry and its sovereign wealth fund, and officials said it would prevent Russian companies from issuing transferable securities and money market instruments in the UK.

The new sanctions also include further restrictions against Russian financial institutions, measures to strengthen trade restrictions and a move to prevent some banks from "accessing Sterling and clearing payments through the UK."

More sanctions will be announced this week, officials said.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the measures "demonstrate our determination to apply severe economic sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine".

He added that the move will impose "the highest costs on Russia and cut her off from the international financial system so long as this conflict persists".