Image source, Reuters

Russian forces are continuing to face logistical problems such as a lack of correct equipment, which is leading to frostbite among soldiers, a US senior defence official has said.

In a briefing, which the BBC has seen via our US partner CBS News, the US Department of Defense (DoD) official also said:

• There are signs that Ukrainians are now able to take back some territory the Russians have taken, such as in Izyum and Kherson
• The Russians are likely to pull battalion tactical groups deployed to other countries back to help in Ukraine
• The DoD has seen clear evidence over the last week of Russians deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure
• It also believes there also signs of on-the-ground behaviour that would likely constitute war crimes
• Russia has likely been firing into the besieged south-eastern city Mariupol from the Sea of Azov

Image source, Reuters

It is 20:00 in Kyiv. Here are the main updates on day 27 of the war:

• There is "nothing left" of Mariupol, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, as Kyiv called on Moscow to allow civilians to evacuate the besieged southern port city
• Elsewhere, Zelensky spoke to Pope Francis and suggested the Vatican could play a mediating role in ending the war
• Russian naval forces have started shelling the outskirts of Odesa, as part of efforts to cut Ukrainians off from the Black Sea
• A Russian billionaire sanctioned by the UK says he no longer owns many former properties, potentially putting them beyond the reach of the law
• The mayor of Boryspil city near Kyiv has told residents to "leave town ASAP" as fighting against Russian forces draws closer
• More than 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of the war, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence has claimed - the BBC cannot verify this figure
• US President Joe Biden has warned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may be preparing to use chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine

Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

US President Joe Biden says Russia may be preparing to use chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine.

Moscow, he says, "has form here - it's used them before".

What he is referring to is the attempted assassination of the former KGB security agency defector Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury in 2018.

That was using a highly toxic nerve agent called Novichok, which was smeared onto the handle of his front door - allegedly by two officers from Russia's GRU military intelligence.

There is a vast difference between this highly refined assassination tool and the mass gassing of civilians over a large residential area.

The latter is what Syria's government forces resorted to on several occasions to flush out their opponents from the country's urban areas like Aleppo and Ghouta.

There is no evidence that Russia used chemical weapons in Syria's civil war, but its air force certainly provided support for the Syrian forces who did deploy these globally banned weapons.

Russia is supposed to have destroyed its last remaining chemical weapons stocks by 2017.

Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon says it's doubtful Russia still has large stocks available for use in Ukraine.

Instead, he believes, Russian forces are quite capable of staging an attack on an industrial plant that releases a toxic cloud of chlorine. This, he adds, would then be blamed on Ukraine's own forces.

Ukraine says its troops in have succeeded in stopping a Russian advance on the port city of Odesa.

However, Russian naval forces started shelling the outskirts of the port on Monday, as part of efforts to cut Ukrainians off from the Black Sea.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko - who is currently in Kyiv - spoke to the BBC about the situation in Odesa, the city he represents.

Vladimir Putin sees Odesa as one of Ukraine’s sacred cities, he says, and it is being attacked because it is the biggest city on the Black Sea.

The last time Odesa was bombed it was by the Nazis 80 years ago, and Putin is a “Hitler of the 21st Century,” Goncharenko told the BBC.

The MP does not believe that Putin is ready for peace negotiations at present, and says he will not stop, or have real negotiations, unless he realises he cannot do anything to Ukraine.

There should be more international sanctions on Russia so Putin cannot afford the war, Goncharenko says.

He adds that Ukraine needs to be supplied with more weapons – not just air defence systems but aircraft, because Russia currently has an advantage in the air.

Image source, .

Image source, EPA

Ukraine’s president has said there’s “nothing left” of Mariupol as Kyiv appealed to Moscow to allow civilians to evacuate the besieged southern port city.

"There is nothing left there. Only ruins," Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address to the Italian parliament.

Mariupol, a key strategic target for Moscow, has endured weeks of Russian bombardment. Officials say residents have been left without food, medicine, power or running water.

As Zelensky spoke, Mariupol's council said Russian forces had dropped two large bombs on the city but gave no details of casualties or damage.

"Once again it is clear that the occupiers are not interested in the city of Mariupol. They want to level it to the ground and make it the ashes of a dead land," the council said.

Russia denies targeting civilians.

Earlier, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, reiterated calls for a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to leave.

Later, she said at least 100,000 people wanted to leave but were unable to.

On Monday, Ukraine defied an ultimatum for the city to surrender as a condition for Russian forces to let civilians leave safely.

Image source, Reuters

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said the people of Ukraine are enduring a living hell, and warned that the situation was becoming more destructive and unpredictable by the hour.

"The war is going nowhere, fast," he told reporters in New York, describing it as unwinnable.

"Continuing the war in Ukraine is morally unacceptable, politically indefensible, and militarily nonsensical... It is time to stop the fighting now and give peace a chance."

Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

The figure of 10,000 Russian soldiers killed during the war in Ukraine is a "reasonable estimate", a Western official has said.

The number briefly appeared on a pro-Kremlin website, possibly after being hacked, before being quickly deleted.

The official said this number of losses could mean a further 30-40,000 Russian troops have been wounded or incapacitated in some way.

“This is a very significant drain on Russia’s forces,” they said.

But they added that Russia still had "a lot of combat power" and could continue "to sustain a grinding attritional [drawn out] conflict for some time".

“This is a level of casualties that has not been experienced really since the second World War,” they added.

“The morale of Russian forces and their will to keep fighting in a situation where they are fighting in civilian areas, in a fellow Slavic country is something that we're watching really carefully. It is a conflict on a different scale.”

The most likely scenario is a continuation of the current position, rather than a significant change in which the Russians achieve their objectives or the Ukrainians are able to repel them, the official said.

On chemical weapons, the Western official said the false flag use of a chemical weapon is plausible but not likely.

Asked about the Western role in the targeting of Russian generals by the Ukrainians, the official said they could not speak about any intelligence support that was being provided.

“All I can say is that we are seeking to increase the level of our support in all domains to ensure that the Ukrainians have what they need to defend themselves against Russian attack.”

BBC Monitoring

Russian troops have released journalist Viktoriya Roshchyna after putting her "under pressure" to praise them for saving her life on film, Ukrainian website Ukrayinska Pravda (UP) reports.

Pro-Russian media and Telegram channels have published a video in which the Ukrainian reporter Roshchyna says Russian troops had saved her life and treated her well in captivity.

Viktoriya's heading to Zaporizhzhya in southeastern Ukraine and is a journalist with web-based Hromadsk TV, UP said.

Since the start of the Russian invasion, and before being captured, Roshchyna has reported across eastern and southern Ukraine.

Image source, PA Media

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on the UK government to "ramp up" sanctions on Russia.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, he says Western powers need to continue their support for Ukraine, including supplying more military equipment, while avoiding direct conflict with Russia.

"Everybody understands why every step has to be taken to prevent this escalating into a direct Nato on Russia conflict," he says.

"That is why we need to provide more military support, that's why sanctions have to be ramped up again further and faster and that's why we need to have a stronger, more compassionate humanitarian response.

"What we need to do is to continue to provide that level of support, continue to support the Ukrainians, and ramp up those sanctions which need to go beyond just isolating Russia. They have to cripple its ability to function."

Image source, Family photo

A Russian woman who runs a language school in the UK says she'll offer free English lessons to Ukrainian refugees arriving in the country.

"These people won't know anyone, but if I can make them feel comfortable and settle, that is good," says Tatiana Salvage, who has been teaching Russian in Winchester for the past two years.

"Learning the language and culture of the country you'll be living in is so important," she adds.

Tatiana, who has been a language teacher for over 10 years, says she's received "huge interest" from refugee groups in Winchester and the nearby town of Basingstoke.

"I think teaching a group of 10 would be good but it depends on demand," she says.

Read more on this story here.

Orla Guerin
BBC News

Image source, Goktay Koraltan / BBC

Alex lowers himself into position on a camping mat - face down - with the careful moves of a man who knows backache. "It gets painful staying like this for long," he says, with a smoker's husky laugh.

But lying in wait is the task of the sniper.

That's the wartime role for Alex, who used to have an office job in financial control. The 45-year-old settles in behind the rifle sights, with most of his face covered by a camouflage balaclava. He has been a hunter since boyhood, he says - "always with a licence" he quickly adds.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Alex joined the territorial defence force, along with some 100,000 others according to the authorities here. "I wanted to do something for my motherland," he says.

You can read Orla Guerin's full report on the Ukrainian territorial defence force's new recruits here.

Olga Ivshina
BBC Russian Service

Image source, Reuters

Ever since the start of the Russian invasion, information on Russian casualties has been scarce.

While the Ukrainian government now claims over 15,000 Russian servicemen have been killed, the Russian authorities admitted to just under 500 deaths on 2 March.

BBC Russian has conducted a detailed investigation, confirming the names and ranks of 557 Russian soldiers and officers killed in Ukraine by sifting through social media and local announcements as well as speaking to the relatives.

The investigation found that 15 of Russia’s 85 regions had not published any information about local servicemen killed in Ukraine.

But in one such area - the Kemerovo region in Siberia – BBC Russian (with the help of local residents who asked not to be identified) established identities and burial places of seven soldiers and officers.

A few hours after the BBC investigation was published, the Kemerovo authorities announced that 13 servicemen had been buried in the region since the start of the war.

But there is evidence of growing pressure on local journalists - some earlier reports about soldiers killed in action have been deleted.

One Siberian journalist told the BBC: "At the level of the regional government, all local media outlets were instructed not to publish any data on losses in Ukraine. There are cases when local officials put pressure on the relatives of the victims, ordering them to stay silent.

"They say: 'There is no need to make a fuss now, we will find a way to commemorate your boys later.'"

US President Joe Biden has suggested Moscow could act in retaliation for sanctions with cyber attacks targeting the US.

He said Russia was "exploring" a cyber attack - claims the Kremlin has rejected.

Russia has not yet launched major cyberattacks in the Ukraine war because President Vladimir Putin knows they "can get out of control", a cyber expert has said.

Samantha Ravich, chair of a cyber crime think tank in the US, tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme Russia was widely believed to have launched a major cyber attack against Ukraine in 2018 in the form of a virus that spread and ended up going global, including affecting the NHS.

She says: "It was not contained. At this point, I think Putin still wants to be able to control where and when he is going to attack but as that window is closing if he feels more and more desperate."

Putin is likely becoming more tempted to launch such an attack, she says.

Asked how countries could prepare, she says organisations should "harden the castle wall", including backing up data and improving security for networks.

But she says there should have been more long-term planning to deal with cyber threats.

Asked if cyber was the threat that not had yet barked, she adds: "It will bark."

Image source, Reuters

The UK has provided Ukrainian forces with more than 4,000 anti-tank missile systems to help with "their resistance against Russian aggression", the Ministry of Defence says.

In a series of tweets, the ministry says the devices sent were NLAWs (Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons).

The ministry also refers to a video it describes as "Russian propaganda". It appears to be referring to footage published by two prominent Russian hoaxers who asked UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace about an alleged nuclear weapons programme for Ukraine, and who appeared to suggest the UK was running low on anti-tank weapons.

In the tweets, the MoD says the UK has "enough weapons systems to defend both UK national security and maintain our commitments to Nato".

"People should be very sceptical about reporting on, and accepting as real, any part of these Russian state doctored clips, external," it adds.

Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

Image source, Reuters

A senior foreign correspondent for the Russian TV station Channel One has told a news conference in Paris she resigned from her post earlier this month in opposition to the war in Ukraine.

Zhanna Agalakova, who was a news presenter before taking up postings in Paris and New York, said she had long been troubled by the "propaganda" put out by news media in Russia, but that the war was a "red line" she could not cross.

When the war broke out she said there was "no question" of continuing and calling it an operation for peace.

"It was war," she said.

"I know they will accuse me of being a spy. But no-one paid me. I work for no-one except my country. I want my people to be able to see propaganda for what it is; to seek other sources of information; to stop being turned into zombies."

Agalakova, who began her career in 1991 for the Russian news agency Novosti, added: "We've got to a situation where, in the media, we only get one point of view, the Kremlin's."

Agalakova said that as a news anchor in the early 2000s, she "felt already heavy pressure. Every day we had to show this one person... [And then] he became our second president. It was we [journalists] who set him up. We forged his image".

But she said that in New York in 2013 - leading up to the first Ukrainian war - she was under constant pressure to produce only bad news about the US.

"I never told lies. But that is how propaganda works. You take facts that are true, you arrange them, and you deliver a great big lie," she said.

"Each fact is true, but taken together, it's propaganda."

More now from senior war studies lecturer Dr Ruth Deyermond, from Kings College London, on the war in Ukraine.

She tells the BBC's World at One there is no evidence to suggest either Ukraine or Moscow is on the brink of victory.

Image source, Reuters

Nearly a month after it invaded Ukraine, it is is not clear what Russia's current military objectives are, a senior lecturer in war studies has said.

Dr Ruth Deyermond, from Kings College London, tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme it is "clear" the initial aims of Russia, as expressed by President Vladimir Putin and others in his administration, have not been met "and to an extent now can't be met".

She says securing a land bridge between Russia and Ukraine's southern region of Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, seemed to be where Russia was targeting its focus.

However, Deyermond says the assessment from the UK's Ministry of Defence and other analysts is that Russia still needs to attempt to attack the capital Kyiv and remove the government.

But she adds: "It's very hard to see that working at the moment."

Image source, Reuters

Ukrainians seeking refuge from Russia's invasion of their country have arrived in Goerlitz, Germany, near the border, on their way to Leipzig, to the west.

According to the UN, the war has so far displaced about 10 million Ukrainians, with the majority of them remaining in the country - but around a third becoming refugees.

Germany has so far reportedly registered close to 200,000 recent Ukrainian arrivals.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Nick Thorpe
BBC News, on the Romanian-Ukrainian border

I’ve been astonished by the resilience of the children at all the border crossings from where I’ve covered this exodus.

When their mothers break down in tears, the children comfort them.

In four weeks, I haven’t seen a single child cry.

Though I have heard several ask: "When are we going home?"

Image source, EPA

We have more now on what Ukrainian President Zelensky told the Italian parliament earlier.

He called for Italy to freeze all the assets of the Russian elite and declare a full trade embargo, including oil.

"You know very well who orders troops to go to war and who propagates this. Almost all of them use Italy as a place to rest. Do not be a resort for murderers," he urged MPs.

"Freeze all their property, accounts and yachts. Freeze all the assets of those who have influence, let them use it for peace. Support sanctions against Russia, a full trade embargo, starting with oil."

He also asked Italy to ban Russian ships from entering Italian ports and sanction all Russian banks.

"This war must end as soon as possible. Restore peace. Remove enemy troops from Ukraine. Carry out de-mining - and reconstruction. Reconstruction of Ukraine after this war. Together with you, together with Italy. Together with Europe. Together - in the European Union," he added.