Image source, Getty Images

An international cat federation has said it's banning all Russian cats from entering its competitions.

In a statement on its website the Fédération Internationale Féline said it was "horrified" by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and had subsequently decided to disallow Russian cats from competing in its competitions, which take place around the world.

As well as this, it said that no cats bred in Russia would be allowed to be registered with its organisation outside of Russia.

The rules will be in place until the end of May, when they will be reviewed.

It added that it would dedicate a part of its budget to support cat breeders in Ukraine who are suffering because of the current situation.

Jim Reed
Health reporter, BBC News

Dr Roman Cregg, a Ukrainian doctor working at University College London Hospital, is helping to coordinate medical aid deliveries to his home country.

Today his employer donated crates of spare masks, gowns and trauma kits. They will be driven to the Polish border over the next few days as part of a larger consignment, where the Ukrainian authorities will take them on to the city of Lviv and further afield.

“We have to react to the tragic reality which my countrymen are facing,” said Dr Cregg.

“Every single bit [of equipment] will contribute to us being able to save more people in the hospitals and there is a separate activity to support our troops with first aid kits to help save lives on the battlefield.”

The UK government said it has now flown 300,000 items of medical aid to Poland in three separate shipments – including gloves, sanitiser, wound care packs and resuscitation kits – with more on the way.

Meanwhile the World Health Organization has said a humanitarian corridor must be put in place “as soon as possible” to bring medical aid into areas that have been under direct Russian attack.

The WHO’s director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, told the BBC: “We desperately need to get lifesaving medical supplies into the affected areas of Ukraine because many hospitals are running out of oxygen.

"The fact we don’t have a safe humanitarian corridor is definitely jeopardising human lives and this is something that is not acceptable.”

Earlier today, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed to organise humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.

Jessica Parker
BBC political correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The EU has agreed to grant temporary residence to Ukrainians fleeing the war, for up to three years.

EU ministers gave the plans the green light at a meeting in Brussels today.

The bloc's triggered a mechanism - that’s never been used before - to allow Ukrainian nationals and their families the right to work, education and welfare.

The EU says that those who held long-term residence or refugee status in Ukraine would also be covered - either by the directive or national rules. And that temporary workers or students, who aren't eligible, would be helped to get home.

Earlier reports from Hungary suggested the government there did not support the plans.

However the Commission described today's decision as "unanimous", after some modifications.

Full details are expected tomorrow.

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent, in Kyiv

In the days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv was a European city of golden-domed cathedrals gleaming in the night, brightly-lit restaurants serving steaming bowls of borsch, corner kiosks pouring coffee behind frosty winter windows.

And the world was a place where many thought a blitzkrieg across a border was only history's business.

But in her home in Kyiv, 37-year-old Liana was ready - bags packed, including some books; clothes ironed, enough money to last a while.

Her mother Vera refused to do the same. Her friends poked fun at her.

In the dead of night on Thursday 24 February, this snippet "Russian action will begin at 4am" shot through cyberspace.

It became a day which ended the tidy life of Liana.

Continue reading Lyse's piece here.

Image source, Getty Images

Western nations have imposed crippling sanctions on several Russian billionaires, intending to freeze or seize their assets.

Some in the US are pushing for even more sanctions targeted at allies of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

As part of that effort, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced on Thursday a unique bill that would empower the Biden administration to use the proceeds from sanctioned assets to help Ukraine.

"Typically, sanctioned assets are frozen, not permanently confiscated, an appropriate safeguard under more normal circumstances," said Representative Tom Malinowski, who is co-sponsoring the legislation.

"But in this extraordinary case, we think it would be fitting and right to use the wealth that has supported Putin to help the country he is destroying."

Malinowski added that seeing the luxury apartments, villas and yachts of oligarchs seized would "give Ukrainians and Russians who hate Putin a huge boost" in a war that is being partly defined by morale.

The Pentagon has set up a new hotline with Russia's ministry of defence to prevent "miscalculation, military incidents and escalation", a US official has told the news agency Reuters.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US source said a "de-confliction line" was established on 1 March.

The US military has created hotlines with Russia in the past, including during the war in Syria.

As Russian missiles targeted Kyiv, Olena Gnes wondered how she would tell her three children - one just five months old - what was going on.

She told the BBC she ultimately decided it was better for her children to know upfront that their father had joined Ukraine's defence unit.

Olena tells us the invasion has "taken their childhood away," but that it is important for them to know the truth.

Image source, Getty Images

A little more now on the UK's decision to sanction two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov.

Describing them as "Kremlin associates", UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says, external: "For as long as Putin continues his barbaric attack on innocent Ukrainians we will continue to exert every power we have to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his war machine."

Under the new rules, Usmanov and Shuvalov will have their assets frozen and will be banned from travelling to the UK.

The BBC is contacting the two men - we'll bring you their response if they respond.

Image source, Getty Images

Marks & Spencer is the latest major brand to rethink its business relationship with Russia - it has ordered a halt to shipments to its Russian business run by Turkish franchise partners.

It has more than 40 franchise-run outlets in Russia, with most of them based in Moscow.

M&S joins a wide variety of companies, including Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, H&M and Burberry, who are pausing activities in Russia over concerns about the invasion of Ukraine.

So what sectors are being affected? Our Business desk has this analysis.

Orla Guerin
BBC News

Day by day, Kyiv grows more tense.

Checkpoints, barricades, and roadblocks radiate from the imposing streets in the city centre to the motorways on the outskirts. Spiky metal tank traps - called hedgehogs - have mushroomed at strategic locations. Troops are more alert, checking every car. Some still smile and say "welcome", but many look distracted, already focusing on the battle to come.

It feels like Ukrainian forces in the capital are poised and ready to fight. This ancient city - with its elegant facades and onion domed churches - is now on a war footing.

Russia's advance has clearly not gone to plan for President Vladimir Putin. With the invasion now in its second week, his troops and tanks are still outside the capital - but maybe not for long. Ukrainian forces we spoke to on Thursday expect the Russians to reach Kyiv in a day or two.

So, deep in a forest on the outskirts of the city, men from Ukraine's territorial defence units are digging trenches.

"Welcome to our party," said the soldier who dropped us off, after a bumpy ride in the back of a military truck full of ammunition boxes.

The scene is somehow reminiscent of World War Two. There's no heavy machinery, just a shovel in every hand. It's a rush job to block the path of Russian forces. We cannot identify the location. One man wields a chain saw, doing battle with a stubborn pine tree.

Read more here

This drone footage shows the extent of destruction to buildings and Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, 60km (40 miles) northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

A town which is home to one of Europe's biggest nuclear power plants has become the site of intense fighting in recent days.

Writing on Facebook, the mayor of Enerhodar in south-eastern Ukraine said there was no water supply across the town, and no electricity in some neighbourhoods.

The town has been subject to intense shelling in recent days.

Yesterday, a large crowd of power plant workers and locals built makeshift barricades blocking Russian troops' access to the town, according to the BBC's Ukrainian Service.

Today, social media videos posted by mayor Dmitry Orlov showed residential buildings and a school being shelled as the battle there continued.

Image source, EPA

Earlier we heard from Russian President Vladimir Putin who said his "special military operation" in Ukraine - aka an invasion - was "going according to plan".

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has a very different take. He says Russia is significantly behind schedule.

"Despite the horrendous daily destruction and bombardment of civilian areas, and a number of these cities, Ukrainians come out in the daytime, they gauge their forces, they drive them back in some cases, and they continue to fight," he told the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Beale.

"Russia has been accumulating a significant number of not only deaths, but also desertions and people surrendering, and a significant number of armour and equipment has been destroyed," he added.

He also pointed to Russian forces' failure to take the capital, Kyiv - and poor logistical planning around vehicles and food for troops.

Of President Putin, Mr Wallace said: "He's a man wrapped in sanctions of his own making. He's a man who has broken every international law. He's a man more and more isolated."

Olena and her three young children have been sheltering in a basement in Kyiv to avoid Russian missiles.

She tells Radio 5 Live she's taught her children the difference between the sound of a bomb and the sound of an incoming missile."If you hear boom, boom," she says, "[the bomb] is far away, if you hear shhhh, that is the missile flying and that is the most dangerous sound."

Olena says she's decided not to evacuate from the city because "to leave and to stay is equally dangerous".

"To be evacuated with three children... it's not an easy way to go."

Image source, Reuters

The UK is sanctioning two further oligarchs - Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose commercial links to Everton football club have been suspended, and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov.

Image source, EPA

Civilians continue to make their way out of Ukraine and into neighbouring countries as the bombardment of key cities by Russia intensifies.

Here's the latest:

• The UN has said that more than one million people have now fled Ukraine since the conflict began seven days ago
• Russian forces have gained control of the key port city of Kherson on Ukraine's southern coast, making it the first major city to fall
• Shelling continues in the strategic port city of Mariupol, and the mayor there has said that Russian forces have cut off electricity, food, water, and heating

• At least 22 people have been killed in air strikes on Chernihiv, a city around 70 miles north of Kyiv
• A second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators has taken place in Belarus, with Ukraine calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians
• Vladimir Putin claimed in a televised speech that the invasion was "going according to plan"
• Nato is not considering a no-fly zone, the US ambassador to the bloc has said
• At a press conference, Volodymyr Zelensky told Nato: "If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes"
• Zelensky also asked Putin for direct talks
• Russia is to challenge the ban imposed on its football teams by Fifa and Uefa
• The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into possible war crimes amid the suspected bombing of civilians by Russian forces

Image source, EPA

We've now heard from the Russian side of the table from the negotiations with Ukraine.

Russian presidential aide and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky tells news channel Rossiya 24 it was possible to find mutual understanding on some points of negotiation - "the main issue that we resolved today is the issue of saving people, civilians who found themselves in the zone of military clashes".

He says the two defence ministries have agreed a format for maintaining humanitarian corridors "for the exit of the civilian population [and] on the possible temporary cessation of hostilities in the sector of the humanitarian corridor for the period of the exit of the civilian population".

"I think that this is significant progress," he adds.

News agency Reuters is reporting that the next round of talks will take place at the start of next week.

A bit more now on Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech this afternoon.

Speaking at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, he praised Russian troops for what he described as their "bravery" in Ukraine.

In the televised address shown on rolling news channel Rossiya 24, he listed a number of examples of Russian soldiers' "heroic" actions during the fighting against what he called "neo-Nazi" forces in Ukraine.

He added that the families of Russian soldiers who had been killed during the fighting would be compensated.

It comes after Moscow yesterday said that 498 of its soldiers had been killed so far in Ukraine - the first time it's put a number on how many of its troops have been killed since the invasion started.

Ukraine says that number is far higher.

We have some more details from the Ukraine-Russia talks.

Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak says the sides have reached an understanding on "jointly securing humanitarian corridors to evacuate peaceful civilians, and also on supplying medicine and food to the places of the most fierce fighting".

He adds there is a possibility, "I stress, with a possibility of a temporary ceasefire for the evacuation period in certain sectors".

Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak says that "with a great regret" the latest talks between Russia and Ukraine "haven't achieved the results we were hoping for".

But he says the two sides agreed to continue negotiations in "the nearest future".

"The only thing I can say is that we discussed the humanitarian aspect in details, because quite a lot of cities are now surrounded," he says.