Reports have been coming in about a Russian strike on a maternity hospital in the south-eastern city of Mariupol - which has already suffered days of shelling.

Now President Zelensky has tweeted footage from the incident - which he described as a "direct strike" - it shows destroyed rooms along a corridor in the building.

"People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?" he says.

Zelensky demanded a no-fly zone over the country to stop Russian aircraft from flying - something the US and other Nato countries have ruled out.

"Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity," he urged.

The city council said the strike had destroyed a maternity ward and a children's ward.

More now on the emerging story that a Russian airstrike has destroyed a hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

The head of the regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, has posted a video on Facebook showing the extent of the damage caused in the strike.

Kyrylenko wrote that Russia has "not only crossed the border of unacceptable relations between states and peoples. You have crossed the line of humanity".

"Stop calling yourselves human beings," he added.

Russia has destroyed a children's hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol in the south-east of Ukraine, the city council says.

In a statement issued on Facebook, officials say that "Russian occupying forces have dropped several bombs on the children's hospital. The destruction is colossal".

Council officials added that they do not yet know exact casualty numbers.

"The maternity ward in the city centre, the children's ward and the therapy ward at the hospital - all destroyed in a Russian air raid on Mariupol," the head of the regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a Facebook video.

He added that those wounded in the strike are being evacuated to the nearest hospital.

The BBC cannot independently verify the allegations, but a local MP, Dmytro Gurin, repeated the claims during an interview with the corporation.

Image source, Getty Images

Ukraine's foreign minister has urged the international community to intervene and come to the aid of some 400,000 people currently under siege by Russian forces in the south-eastern of Mariupol.

Dymtro Kuleba accused Russia of holding citizens in the port city hostage and called on the West to force "Russia to stop its barbaric war in civilians and babies".

"Russia continues holding hostage over 400.000 people in Mariupol, blocks humanitarian aid and evacuation," Kuleba wrote. "Indiscriminate shelling continues. Almost 3,000 newborn babies lack medicine and food. I urge the world to act," he added.

Kuleba's intervention comes as Dmytro Gurin, an MP hailing from the city, told the BBC that the city has just three to five days worth of food left and that authorities have been forced to bury 33 people killed by Russian shelling in a mass grave.

Russia's defence ministry has acknowledged that some conscripts - soldiers who were compulsorily drafted into the army - are taking part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In Russia, all men aged 18-27 must do a year's military service, although there are some exceptions.

It comes just a few days after Vladimir Putin denied conscripts were involved in Ukraine, saying only professional soldiers were being sent.

The defence ministry said some conscripts had been taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces.

"Unfortunately, we have discovered several facts of the presence of conscripts in units taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine," the Russian defence ministry said.

"Practically all such soldiers have been pulled out," it added, promising to prevent a repeat of the situation.

Read - Mother of Russian soldier asks 'Whose door should I knock on to get my child back?'

Caroline Davies
BBC News, Moscow

Image source, EPA

"This china always reminds me of my grandparents," Lydia tells me. We are sitting in her flat in Moscow, drinking tea from porcelain cups.

"My great grandfather left the country to survive the pogroms. My grandfather survived Stalin's repressions, but three of his brothers and his father were murdered. He left the country.

"And now it seems I have to flee again. It just goes in circles."

Lydia is not her real name, but with independent media closed and driven out of Russia, protesters arrested on the cities' streets and new laws leading to up to 15 years in prison for what the authorities determine to be fake news about the military, she doesn't want her details to be shared.

As Western companies leave Russia she says she's afraid few will come back for years.

Read more about Lydia's decision to flee Russia here.

Image source, Getty Images

Germany says it won't be sending warplanes to Ukraine, after the US rejected an offer by Poland to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 jets to Ukraine via a US base in Germany.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany has "provided all kinds of defence materials" including weapons, but he says "definitely warplanes are not part of that".

Meanwhile in the UK, No 10 Downing Street says it is "not tenable" for Nato pilots and jets to be shooting down Russian planes.

A spokesman for the PM says Boris Johnson has "repeatedly said" he is committed to "providing the weapons that Ukraine needs".

Earlier, the UK said it was increasing its supply of weapons to Ukraine, sending 1,615 more light anti-tank missiles, as well as longer range Javelin missiles – and looking at sending surface-to-air missiles.

Read more here.

Ukraine and Russia have agreed on ceasefires in six cities in Ukraine today in order to allow trapped civilians to escape - not all are working, as we've reported.

Here's a map showing the planned evacuation routes.

As we've been reporting, Ukraine and Russia have agreed to hold a 12-hour ceasefire in six cities in Ukraine today to allow civilians to escape some of the heaviest fighting.

But we're hearing that not all the planned evacuations of civilians are taking place.

• In Izyum, eastern Kharkiv, a regional official is claiming that the evacuation of civilians has "been held up by Russian shelling". Oleh Synehubov said explosions in the suburbs mean that evacuation convoys are unable to leave.
• In Mariupol, in the south-east, the situation is less clear. Ukraine's foreign minister writes on Twitter that Russia is continuing to block evacuation attempts and the delivery of humanitarian aid. The BBC is unable to verify the situation on the ground.
• In Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, the picture is quite different. People have been able to leave the city in private cars and on buses since this morning, the city's mayor says.
• And in Enerhodar, southern Ukraine, convoys of mainly women and children have been able to leave, its mayor says.

Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News

Image source, EPA

An expert familiar with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant says there is little danger of radioactive material being blown to other parts of the Ukraine or Belarus.

While it would be hazardous for people to enter the facility, very little - if any - radiation, is likely to leak outside, Prof Claire Corkhill of Sheffield University, says.

"I don’t think this would lead to a release of radioactivity because it would take a very long time for the [cooling] water to eventually evaporate. The spent fuel is kept in a modern building which should be sealed and have structural integrity."

Prof Corkhill said that, of greater concern, was that the air conditioning of the safe confinement structure which covers Chernobyl’s reactor number four won't be working either.

That would lead to condensation, which would lead to corrosion of the £1 billion structure.

That doesn’t pose a further risk, but would mean that efforts to clean up the defunct reactor and the decommissioning of the facility will be on hold for a prolonged period - if not indefinitely.

The BBC has been told around 7,000 people have been evacuated from Sumy, in the first successful mass evacuation in this conflict so far.

The city is close to the Russian border and frontline and has experienced heavy shelling.

Our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford met some of those arriving in Poltava, in central Ukraine.

Amid all the horror, a moment of light relief.

Members of Kyiv orchestra have held an impromptu, open-air concert in the city's Independence Square.

Wearing hats and coats while playing in freezing temperatures, they performed various pieces, including the European Union's anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Videos on social media showed a small crowd standing to listen to the music and waving Ukrainian flags.

The conductor, Herman Makarenko, said the aim was to promote the Ukrainian government's call for a no-fly zone across the country and an end to the war.

Image source, PA Media

Ukraine's ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko's own wife faced problems getting a visa to the UK, he told a committee of British politicians earlier.

Prystaiko criticised the bureaucratic nature of the system. He told MPs he understood the government had strict immigration policies, but the system had been a "hassle" for a long time.

He appealed to MPs to drop visa rules for Ukrainians for a limited period, as Russia continues to invade.

The UK government has come under criticism over the limited number of visas it has granted to those fleeing the war.

The UN has said over two million people have fled Ukraine. As of Wednesday morning the UK has granted visas to 700 people.

Read more here.

Image source, Reuters

• A 12-hour ceasefire has been agreed in six of the areas worst hit by fighting, Ukraine says. It's hoped civilians will be able to escape via humanitarian corridors. The first groups are already being bussed out - but fighting is continuing elsewhere
• There are concerns over safety at former nuclear plant Chernobyl, occupied by Russian troops. Ukraine's state-run energy company says it has lost its power supply
• The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia have agreed to meet for talks, which take place in Turkey tomorrow

• Economic sanctions on Russia continue to hit - and according to a leading credit ratings agency Russia will soon be unable to pay its debts and a default is "imminent"
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's wife, Olena, has issued an impassioned statement focusing on child deaths
• There are more calls on the UK to speed up its visa process for Ukrainian refugees. Ukraine's UK ambassador has said his own wife faced delays getting a visa when he got the role. Boris Johnson says almost 1,000 Ukrainian refugees have been granted visas and numbers "will rise very sharply"

More now on the damage to the former nuclear plant at Chernobyl - the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986 - and Ukraine's foreign minister has called on Russia to agree to a ceasefire to allow for urgent repairs to be made.

Dmytro Kuleba said reserve diesel generators have a 48-hour capacity to power the plant. "After that, cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent", he wrote on Twitter.

His comments follow an intervention from the state-run nuclear company, Energoatom, who said a leak could see a "radioactive cloud carried by wind" to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and further afield in Europe.

But in a statement issued on Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sought to calm fears.

"Due to time elapsed since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and the volume of cooling water contained in the pool is sufficient to maintain effective heat removal without the need for electrical supply."

Meanwhile, radiation levels around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - the largest in Europe - and which was seized by Russian forces last week, are said to be normal.

Repairs are being carried out on a block damaged by fighting, Petro Kotin, the head of state nuclear firm Energoatom, said.

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

Image source, EPA

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has announced the UK is increasing its supply of weapons to Ukraine to defend itself.

Britain has already delivered 2,000 NLAW anti-tank missiles (Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons). Wallace told MPs that number was being increased to 3,615.

In addition Wallace said the UK was also supplying Ukraine with a small consignment of Javelin anti-tank weapons and examining the possibility of sending Starstreak surface to air missiles to Ukraine.

He said the UK had also provided small arms, body armour, helmets, ration packs and medical supplies to Ukraine.

Reality Check

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said in Parliament: “We’ve done more to resettle vulnerable people than any other European country since 2015."

He’s made this claim before, and the government says it refers to “resettled refugees” - people who were admitted to the UK from another country where they had initially sought refuge.

The UK has resettled 25,530 of them since 2015 – the majority of them were Syrians. This is ahead of France, which admitted 16,345 under this scheme, and Germany with 14,540.

But this figure ignores hundreds of thousands of refugees who were granted asylum outside of this scheme.

If you add up the number of resettled refugees and those who were granted asylum, some European countries have allowed far more people in.

The UK granted refuge to a total of 92,232 people from around the world from 2015 to 2020.

By comparison, Germany granted refuge to 1,060,000 people in the same period.

Image source, PA Media

Let’s turn to the UK, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been facing questions from MPs in the House of Commons.

Many of the questions were focused on the situation in Ukraine, including the energy consequences in the UK and support for refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.

Under pressure to do more for refugees, Johnson said almost 1,000 Ukrainians had been granted visas to come to the UK already and the numbers would rise "very sharply".

Boris Johnson was accused by the SNP of leading a government with the "slowest" and "most incompetent" refugee response in Europe

One of the PM’s former ministers, Julian Smith, called on the PM to “look again at resetting our policy”.

But the PM said the government was doing everything it could to welcome Ukrainian refugees and understood what benefits they could give.

He also the government would announce more details later this week on allowing access to the UK via a sponsorship route.

We've been talking a lot about attempts to evacuate the southern port city of Mariupol, where streets are said to be lined with bodies, and people have run out of food.

Efforts to try to free people have so far failed, with Russian attacks continuing.

There has been very little footage and few photos emerging to reveal exactly what it's like inside the city.

But the BBC has now verified this video showing some of the extent of the devastation.

Image source, Reuters

As we've been hearing, talks between Russia and Ukraine's foreign ministers are set to take place in Turkey tomorrow, and the country's President Erdogan is hoping to act as a mediator.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has also been acting as an intermediary, flying to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday and also speaking on the phone with him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Israeli officials have briefed Israeli journalists that the discussions are now at a “critical” point.

US-based news site Axios reported on Tuesday night that the Israeli officials felt there had been a “softening of positions on both sides”, external the Russians were saying “they only want to demilitarise the Donbas”.

Putin declared at the start of the invasion that he wanted to defend Russian-speaking communities through the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of Ukraine. He also demanded Ukraine recognise Crimea as part of Russia and recognise the independence of the Russian-backed areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, which are part of the Donbas region.

The Russian proposal was “difficult” for Zelensky to accept, but it “doesn’t include regime change in Kyiv and allows Ukraine to keep its sovereignty”, the Israeli officials added.

The Jerusalem Post cited sources as saying the Russian offer was “final”, external, and that Putin would ramp up the Russian assault if Mr Zelensky rejected it.