Simon Atkinson
BBC News, Melbourne

Image source, EPA

Australia has sanctioned Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and members of his family in response to their role in the war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko has been added to the list for providing strategic support to Russia and its military.

His son Viktor Lukashenko and wife Galina Lukashenko are also subject to the sanctions.

Another 22 Russian “propagandists and disinformation operatives" have been added, including senior figures at media organisations Russia Today, InfoRos and NewsFront.

“Australia has now sanctioned a total of 32 pro-Kremlin propagandists, reflecting the strategic importance of disinformation in Russia's attempts to legitimise Putin's unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine," said Marise Payne, Australia’s foreign minister.

"These latest steps, one month into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, continue our focused efforts to ensure that Russia and those who support its illegal, unprovoked invasion of its democratic neighbour, pay a high cost."

Vladimir Putin, a string of oligarchs and senior Russian politicians have already been sanctioned by Canberra.

Image source, Getty Images

Russia will regret its decision to attack Ukraine, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters in a briefing on Thursday.

"I think with a high degree of certainty that Russia will emerge from Ukraine weaker than it went into the conflict," he said.

"Militarily weaker, economically weaker, politically and geopolitically weaker, and more isolated."

He added that the Russians are running out of precision missiles due to the month-long conflict.

Kahl also said that a forthcoming US strategy assessment will declare Russia "an acute threat", but added the country does not pose the same long term challenge to the US as China.

A former UK toy store has reopened as an aid collection centre for those wishing to make donations for people in Ukraine.

Volunteers from a Polish social club, which started the project, said they've been "humbled" to have already received so many donations at the site in Southampton.

It is hoped much of the aid - which includes food, children's toys and clothes - will reach people trapped in the besiged southern port city of Mariupol.

Toby Luckhurst
BBC News, Krakow

Image source, Margriet Helmhout

Some 2.2 million people have now crossed into Poland from Ukraine. With Ukrainian men of military age prevented from leaving, the vast majority of them are women and children - and many are staying in Krakow, Poland's second largest city and the first entry point for many refugees.

Margriet Helmhout owns a sock factory in the northern Netherlands. She first donated some of her wares to the refugees before deciding to drive down herself to help, volunteering at a kitchen in the square outside Krakow's main station.

The trestle tables are lined with blue-and-yellow napkins, matching the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Boxes behind the volunteers are packed with plastic carrier bags, sanitary products and writing materials.

Margriet tells me she quickly realised that the refugees needed more than clothes and food: "We were outside in the square in my car, with a table in front. We only bought drawing things - books, pencils, children's stuff," she said. "Then the women are more happy - the children have something to do."

Margriet shows me a drawing the children made for her, a sunset with Ukraine scrawled across the top. "It made me cry," she said.

Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News

The US Department of Justice has charged four Russian government employees with cyber attacks on the global energy sector between 2012-18.

They are accused of targeting hundreds of companies and organisations in around 135 countries.

Their activities are said to have caused two separate emergency shutdowns at one facility in Saudi Arabia. The alleged conspirators subsequently attempted to hack the computers of a company that managed similar critical infrastructure entities in the US.

Some of the individuals are linked by the US indictment to the FSB, Russia’s Security Service.

Read more about this case.

Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

One month into this invasion and so far, Ukraine has defied the odds. Outnumbered on almost every metric - in tanks, in troops, in aircraft - Ukraine's forces, reinforced by citizen volunteers, have in many places fought the Russian army to a standstill.

The tide could still turn against Ukraine. Its forces are running dangerously low on the vital Western-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles needed to fend off the advancing Russians.

Yet despite this, Ukraine's forces are outperforming Russia's in this war, on several levels. This week the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised them as defending parts of their country "very smartly, very nimbly, very creatively".

So what exactly have been the secrets of their success?

Read more - What Ukraine is getting right

Bethany Bell
BBC News, Vienna

Image source, Getty Images

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says Ukraine has told it that Russian forces are shelling checkpoints in the city of Slavutych.

The city of around 25,000 residents is where many workers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant live.

Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, has been under the control of Russian forces for about a month.

Ukraine has told the IAEA that the shelling is endangering the homes and families of staff at Chernobyl and preventing the further rotation of personnel to and from the site.

Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, said he was concerned by the development which comes just a few days after staff were allowed to return home after nearly four weeks without a change of shift.

He said the IAEA would continue to closely monitor the situation.

Ukrainian forces are striking "high value targets" in Russian-occupied areas of the country, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) says in one of its regular intelligence updates.

These targets include a landing ship and ammunition depots in the occupied port of Berdyansk, the MoD says.

The MoD predicts the Ukrainians will continue to target Russian logistics, depriving them of fresh supplies, reducing their ability to mount attacks and "further damage already dwindling morale".

Image source, Reuters

About 2,700 people were able to leave the besieged and destroyed city of Mariupol today, Ukraine's deputy prime minister says.

But Iryna Vereshchuk accused Russia of blocking humanitarian aid convoys into the city for the past three days. The World Health Organization also says it has been unable to reach Mariupol.

Russia has taken control of parts of the city. In one such area it handed out supplies to hundreds of residents who emerged from their places of shelter, according to a Reuters news report from the city.

At the scene was Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Donetsk, as well as an official from Putin's United Russia party, Andrei Turchak, according to pro-Russian separatist media.

Turchak wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia would rebuild Mariupol but added - "Make no mistake, Russia is here forever".

Though the subject at the top of the agenda is extremely serious, the leaders meeting in Brussels for a European Council summit looked pleased to see each other, as well as their American visitor US President Joe Biden.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

The editor of Russia's last independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, which was taken off air by the Russian authorities days into the war, says he will ask police to investigate how a pig's head came to be dumped outside his apartment and an anti-Semitic slogan glued onto the front door.

Aleksei Venediktov - who had led Ekho Moskvy for decades - said he would not allow Russia to be turned into Nazi Germany.

He said his wife had thrown away "all that rubbish" - but they had CCTV footage. He said it showed a courier from a delivery service. The company said he wasn't one of their employees.

Russia and Ukraine say they have conducted the first exchange of captured soldiers since the war began a month ago.

Ten Ukrainian soldiers were exchanged for 10 Russian soldiers, officials said.

In a separate exchange, 11 Russian civilian sailors who had been rescued from a ship that sank off Odesa were swapped for 19 Ukrainian seafarers from a ship captured by the Russians while they were trying to seize Snake Island in the Black Sea at the very start of the war.

The ship itself is being returned to Ukraine via a port in Turkey.

Earlier this week Russia and Ukraine said they had exchanged nine Russian prisoners for the mayor of Melitopol, a city in south-eastern Ukraine that has been captured by the Russian army.

Image source, EPA

It’s been a busy day for US President Joe Biden. He’s now at the European Council in Brussels attending a summit of EU leaders which is focusing on the war in Ukraine.

He repeated his claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying "to break up Nato", adding that Putin “would rather face 30 independent countries, than 30 united countries with the United States of America”.

Biden says the idea “of the unity of Europe as a whole - not just Nato, the G7 and this organisation [European Council], really matters. It’s the single most important thing that we can do to stop this guy who, in our country we believe, has already committed war crimes”.

Viktoria's stepfather died when the car taking him to hospital was blown up during fighting in the southern city of Mariupol.

One of many Ukrainians burying relatives killed by the war, she explained why the family has had to wait two weeks to dig a grave for him.

Image source, Reuters

Looking ahead now, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss Israel's role as mediator between Russia and Ukraine as part of his visit to the Middle East and North Africa which gets under way on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been trying to negotiate an end to the conflict.

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Yael Lempert made the announcement to reporters earlier.

She also warned that the war in Ukraine will only continue to increase the price of basic staples in the Middle East and North Africa region as wheat prices rise.

Image source, Reuters

Canada has capacity to increase oil and gas exports by the equivalent of 300,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) by the end of this year, its natural resources minister has said.

Jonathan Wilkinson said Canada could increase oil exports by 200,000 bpd and gas by 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, in order to help other countries reduce their reliance on Russian energy.

He said the country was also looking into ways to supply liquified natural gas (LNG), which it does not currently export.

"Our European friends and allies need Canada and others to step up," Wilkinson said. "They're telling us they need our help in getting off Russian oil and gas in the short term, while speeding up the energy transition across the continent," Wilkinson said.

To put this in perspective, Russia exports about five million barrels of crude oil each day, of which more than half goes to Europe.

How reliant is the world on Russia for oil and gas?

"I think Ukraine can certainly win," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told the BBC.

Speaking to Newsnight's Nick Watt, he said: "I don't think it's going to be easy. There's a sense in which Putin has already failed, or lost, because I think that he had literally no idea that the Ukrainians were going to mount the resistance that they are, and he totally misunderstood what Ukraine is - and, far from extinguishing Ukraine as a nation, he's solidified it... He can't subjugate Ukraine. He can't win in that sense."

Mr Johnson said that he was "not optimistic" that Putin really wants peace.

"I think he's decided to double-down and to try to 'Groznyfy' the great cities of Ukraine in the way that he's always tried to do - and I think that's a tragic mistake," he said.

This was a reference to the Chechen city of Grozny, which Russia bombed heavily and besieged in 1999-2000.

UK viewers can watch the full interview on Thursday at 22:30 on BBC Two, or on iPlayer afterwards.

If you're just joining us, there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity as Nato, G7 and EU leaders met in Brussels:

• Biden said Nato has never been more united and this was the opposite of what Putin thought would happen. He urged continuing unity so sanctions would stay in place long enough to affect Moscow's decision-making
• Biden, the UK's Johnson and France's Macron all refused to say exactly how they would respond if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine. But Biden said the nature of the US response would depend on the nature of the chemical weapons used
• Nato has confirmed that four new battlegroups comprised of 40,000 troops in total will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania
• Germany's Scholz and EU chief von der Leyen say payments for Russian energy won't be made in roubles as Moscow has demanded - "the time of Russian energy blackmail is over," von der Leyen said

In Ukraine itself fighting has continued:

• A Russian landing ship has been destroyed and two other vessels damaged in the occupied Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk, say Ukrainian officials. It is unclear what caused the explosion
• Ukraine says it has conducted the first proper prisoner exchange with Russia since the war began, with 10 Ukrainians exchanged for 10 Russians. In a separate exchange 11 Russian civilian sailors rescued from a ship that sank off Odesa were swapped for 19 Ukrainian seafarers from a ship captured by the Russians
• The World Health Organization says it is still unable to get desperately needed medical supplies into the besieged south-eastern town of Mariupol, and also Mykolaiv, which is further west. Tarik Jasarevic told the BBC the UN health agency is setting up a staging post to move supplies, but has not been able to reach the two areas

Vadym Prystaiko, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, tells the BBC that what his country needs is to give Ukraine's forces the ability to keep the skies clear.

Image source, Getty Images

With reports that Russia's offensive has largely stalled, Ukraine says its forces are now shifting onto the offensive across parts of the country.

Taras Ishchyk, a member of the territorial defence forces of the Ukrainian army, is in the city of Lviv. He tells the BBC the armed forces can defeat the Russians because Ukrainians believe in what they are fighting for.

"All of our soldiers are full of fury now because Russians don't have any moral rules," he says. "They kill... civilians, children, old people."

He describes the actions of Russia in this invasion as "disgusting".

"We are very motivated to finish this war and to win this war," the former marketing manager says. "We all know for what we fight, and they don't know, so it's a big difference."