Fergal Keane
BBC News, Lviv in western Ukraine

The Lviv train station has become a staging post for those trying to flee Ukraine, and those trying to get in.

In the middle of the crowds, Ola plays the piano for the thousands of refugees still arriving here before trying to get on trains that will take them to Poland.

The piano was brought to the station this morning and musicians are playing a variety of patriotic and popular songs.

Elsewhere food and medical tents have been set up to cater for those fleeing the Russian invasion.

Many of those arriving today came from the embattled city of Kharkiv.

One man, who gave his name as Pavel, arrived with his wife and several children and grandchildren.

"Everything is burning," he said.

Read here for more on Ukraine's refugees.

Image source, EPA

A Ukrainian mother, sheltering in Kyiv with her three children - aged five and seven, and a four-month-old - says it is impossible to hide the horror of the situation from them.

She tells BBC Radio 5 Live: "My city is surrounded with Russian troops and tanks, to leave or to stay is equally dangerous, there is no place in Ukraine you can be absolutely safe right now.

"I decided it’s better to stay with my children here, this is my home.

"I just feel that I need to be here, my home, because who is going to protect it if I'm not here? I have to now show my children how to protect my personal boundaries and what belongs to me.

"I am trying to be strong and I’m not hiding that I’m afraid. I tell them it’s OK to be afraid, I’m afraid too.

"We’re in a situation where it’s impossible to hide anything from the children."

She says when they could hear explosions in Kyiv, she and her husband realised "it had started and we cannot hide it".

"We told them Russia has attacked and we are at war and you need to know how to be as safe as possible," she explains.

And the mother of three says she has taught her children how to recognise if a missile is close or far away by the sound.

"This is our reality, we have to face it," she says.

"On the second day of the war, my husband joined the local defence unit – he is civilian but he had no choice – it’s just surreal.

"Everything here was normal, there was nothing in the air, it was a peaceful time. All of a sudden we were attacked for nothing."

She adds: "Putin is a human being, he’s just a man, what makes him give an order to kill thousands of people?"

Today we’ve been hearing about Kherson - the first major city to fall to Russian forces.

English teacher Daria lives just outside the southern port city, and tells the BBC she’s trying to stay positive.

“You realise that’s your new reality and you have to adjust to it no matter if you want [to] or not,” she says.

Daria is still trying to teach children, and says she’s realised it’s not her who is distracting them from the outside world - but them distracting her.

“It gives me hope that one day those kids will go to the real school,” she says.

“I know that there is a future. And I believe in the victory day. I know that one day I will see my family and my loved ones - and I will hug them tightly.”

Ukraine's police have published this video, which they say shows the aftermath of bombing in the northern city of Chernihiv.

It shows the destruction of several buildings and vehicles.

The city has seen heavy Russian shelling, but remains in Ukrainian hands, according to the latest UK military intelligence update.

As we've been reporting, Russian forces have seized control of the key port city of Kherson in the south of Ukraine.

This footage from Tuesday shows military trucks moving through its streets. It has become the first major city to be taken by Russia since the invasion began a week ago.

The mayor of Mariupol says Russian troops encircling the southern port city have created a situation similar to the deadly Nazi siege of St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) in World War Two.

"They are trying to create a blockade here, just like in Leningrad," said Vadym Boichenko.

The city's mayor says Russian troops have cut off the city's electricity, food, water and heating.

He said "they couldn't find a way to break us. So now they are trying to prevent us from repairing electricity, water and heating supply".

Russian forces destroyed a train connection so they can't evacuate civilians, he adds.

Temperatures are forecast to drop to -2C (28 Fahrenheit) this coming weekend.

Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Dnipro

The queue of cars entering Dnipro from Kharkiv today is 6km (3.7 miles) long. We know, because we drove along it. All the number plates show they come from Ukraine’s second city, which is now under daily bombardment by Russian troops. These are families who spent the past week in bunkers and basements, now gathering their nerves and making a dash out of their city and to safety. I just saw a white rescue service minibus full of children.

As the column of cars creeps towards the entrance to Dnipro, they reach sandbags and tyres piled into walls by locals and soldiers, and metal ‘hedgehog’ crosses and boulders to try to stop any advancing Russian tanks. There are teams digging trenches through the fields.

At one spot I saw men with a bright yellow Lada car and trailer filling white sacks with rubble and sand. There are checkpoints all along the road now, manned by police and soldiers, Ukrainian flags flying above.

Inside Dnipro, life has been transformed in just a week.

Families who haven’t left to head west yet are now dashing back and forth to their basements when the eerie air raid siren wails. This morning, I dropped in to see a woman we met last week, and she showed me how her husband and neighbours are working to make the basement of their block as comfy as possible. There are mattresses and camp beds, even rugs on the dusty concrete, and supplies of food - including for people’s pets. It’s all utterly abnormal.

But even now, Anna told me how teachers in Dnipro are trying to distract children, and probably themselves, by running Zoom classes between the city’s bunkers. Today’s timetable includes science, Ukrainian language and yoga.

This video, filmed on Thursday lunchtime in the Russian capital, shows a long queue of people waiting to withdraw money – as fears continue over the impact of financial sanctions.

One man hunting for euros or dollars tells the BBC that he had tried seven different cash machines.

What will the war crimes investigation involve?published at 13:57 Greenwich Mean Time 3 March 2022

13:57 GMT 3 March 2022

Anna Holligan
BBC News Hague correspondent

Image source, State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout

Russia faces a war crimes investigation after a record referral from 39 countries. It's evidence of international concern but it's more than just symbolic, it means the investigation can begin immediately.

In fact, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan told the BBC he has already despatched a team to the region, to start gathering and preserving any evidence of atrocities that fall within the court's jurisdiction - which covers war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, anything that violates the Geneva Conventions.

For example, the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, deliberately targeting civilians or buildings that have no military link; like the concert venue in Kharkiv, and TV tower in Kyiv.

Plus, the use of weapons that are imprecise and could result in civilian casualties, like cluster munitions or vacuum bombs, which Ukraine's ambassador to the US accused Moscow of deploying - an allegation the Kremlin has denied.

The ICC investigators will be collecting clues to build a picture on the ground, establish a chain of command and eventually bring charges against the people at the top giving the orders and orchestrating this invasion.

Russia isn't a member of the ICC so any Russian nationals would have to be extradited to face justice in The Hague.

But as history tells us, leaders who seem all powerful, untouchable today, may not be so tomorrow.

Image source, Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that Russia will successfully demilitarise Ukraine and render it neutral, which he said were his goals there.

According to a read-out of the telephone call, Putin said that any attempt by Ukraine to delay negotiations would only result in Russia adding to its list of demands.

Putin also told Macron that he disagreed with a speech the French leader gave yesterday, in which he held the Russian president responsible alone for starting the war.

Joel Gunter
BBC News, reporting from Lviv, Ukraine

Residents of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol have told the BBC they are trying to survive a relentless barrage of Russian shelling that has smashed residential districts and cut off power and water supplies.

"There has been no light, no heat, and no water now for two full days and we have hardly any food left," says Maxim, 27, an IT developer who was hiding in his grandparents' apartment on Thursday morning.

"Food and medicine are not moving in Mariupol now. The local government tried to give [out] bread and water but it is gone," he says. "I filled the bath with water before the water stopped. We have about five litres left."

Mariupol, a city of some 400,000, is a key strategic target for Russia, because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Maxim left his apartment after the invasion began last week to be with his grandparents, who are in their eighties and cannot leave their sixth-floor, city-centre apartment. The three of them are sheltering in the apartment's hallway.

"The shelling started again at 6am this morning," he says. "We can hear it now from every direction. We are terrified."

Read the full story here: Mariupol under siege

Protests continue in Russia - but what effect might they have?published at 13:24 Greenwich Mean Time 3 March 2022

13:24 GMT 3 March 2022

Jenny Hill
BBC correspondent in Moscow

Image source, Getty Images

Every day since Russia invaded Ukraine, people have protested in the street, disgusted by the aggression perpetrated in the name of their country.

Many are dragged off and detained by police; this morning the authorities warned again that taking part in an unsanctioned protest (protests are rarely sanctioned here) where there is "violence" can result in up to eight years in prison.

The West hopes that popular discontent, exacerbated by public anger as sanctions start to take effect, might be enough to deter Vladimir Putin from his course.

It’s hard to see, in the short term at least, how that will happen.

The Kremlin is stifling independent reporting and state TV, which does not show the full extent of hostilities, parrots its narrative: that this is not a war, but a "special military operation" to - in its (unjustifiable) words - "de-Nazify" the country.

The Kremlin celebrates Russian soldiers killed in action as heroes. The pain imposed by sanctions will, presumably, be presented as another example of Western aggression.

The other calculation - that those sanctions and international isolation might catalyse other more influential figures to remonstrate with Putin - seems not impossible but still rather fanciful at this stage; most analysts acknowledge that the Russian president has made himself so powerful that few dare stand up to him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the goals of Russia's operation in Ukraine - its demilitarisation and neutral status - will be achieved, the Kremlin has said.

The pair shared a 90 minute call earlier on Thursday.

Putin said that any attempts by Kyiv to delay negotiations would result in Moscow adding to its list of demands.

Image source, Davyd Arakhamia/Facebook

A second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations is due to begin in Belarus in the next hour or so.

Kyiv's minimum goal is to set up humanitarian corridors - routes for civilians to escape conflict-hit areas.

This is according to Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia, who posted a short update on Facebook alongside a photo of him and a colleague in front of a helicopter.

It comes as the number of people fleeing Ukraine hits one million, while Moscow continues to lay siege to multiple cities in the south.

Russia's negotiating position - according to the country's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - is that:

• Ukraine must "demilitarise" and "deNazify"
• Crimea - Ukraine's southern peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 - is recognised by Kyiv as part of Russia
• Two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine - self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic - are formally recognised

We'll bring you the latest from the talks as we get it.

Chris Bell
BBC News

Andrew Licholit, from Kharkiv, has joined the city's militia and says he is "helping the regular army and the police to defend and observe the borders of the city".

He says he joined up last week following the invasion, having previously served between 2015 and 2018 in the Donbas conflict.

"The situation right now is controllable, we’re controlling it," he says. "But the Russians are committing literal military crimes.

"They’re committing air assaults on parts of our city which don’t have any military targets there."

Image source, Andrew Licholit

He says the Russians are using people in the city to place marks on targets for strikes and says one of the militia's roles is to track these people down and capture them if possible.

"Right now, I know that we are fighting a big, powerful army. But this is our home and we don't have anywhere to go. We don't have anywhere to run. And actually we don’t want to," he says.

Image source, Getty Images

Russian state-backed television channel RT has criticised the British government after it disappeared from all platforms in the UK as a result of EU sanctions.

Although the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc targeted satellite companies in Luxembourg and France which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview.

RT's deputy editor-in-chief, Anna Belkina tells Reuters the Russian channel had "long stopped expecting any legitimacy or reason in Britain's attempts to curtail media freedoms".

She adds: "Now it seems it has forgotten Brexit and is seeking to force influence over the rest of Europe too."

In the House of Commons, UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries gives her "heartfelt thanks and admiration" to journalists working in Ukraine.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Vladimir Putin's former speechwriter, Abbas Gallyamov, worked under Putin for three years when he first became president of Russia - describing him then as "logical".

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, he says Putin aimed for "Russian troops to enter the border, the Ukrainians would surrender and [President] Zelensky would flee away to the USA".

He says Putin's ideologies derived from never "hearing objections or criticism" from those around him and believes he’s become "the victim of his own system he created".

Gallyamov says Putin would see the sanctions put in place by the West as something he'd need "cancelling", along with Ukraine "meeting [his] demands to not join Nato".

Both would be reason enough for Putin to relax his current stance, he says.

A Russian MP has said Moscow started planning for an invasion of Ukraine 12 months ago.

"We did not prepare this, this operation spontaneously," State Duma member Rifat Shaykhutdinov said on state-controlled Channel One TV on Wednesday.

"It had been in preparation for a year, maybe more. We understood what [was happening] and had been warning them in advance," he said in remarks on Channel One's daily talk show Time Will Tell.

He suggested that Russia would have come under attack had it not invaded.

"As soon as intelligence data arrived... that we would beat them by two days by attacking, of course we are defending our citizens there above all."