As Russia's offensive in Ukraine stalls, the Ukrainian army says Russian units are being pulled out of northern Ukraine into Belarus - an ally of Russia - in order to replenish personnel and supplies.

Writing on Facebook, external, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces says Russian ranks needed rotation.

Many units have suffered heavy losses and are in dire need of food, fuel and ammunition.

Wounded soldiers are also being evacuated to Belarus, which is just north of fierce fighting around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Image source, .

Three entertainers dressed as Batman, Spider-Man and a pink rabbit raised spirits among children inside Kharkiv Metro station.

“We are just three guys, a trio of guys who are daring, healthy and jolly. We decided to help our children with whatever we can do. We can bring joy and smiles and with that we help,” the entertainer dressed as Spider-Man said.

Image source, Reuters

If you're just joining us, here's a recap of today's events so far:

• Ukraine's military intelligence has warned Russia is trying to split Ukraine in two, having failed to take the capital or any other major cities since they invaded last month
• French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the verbal escalation on the war in Ukraine, a day after his American counterpart Joe Biden described Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a "butcher"
• Biden's unscripted comments didn't stop there either, having also said in a speech in Poland yesterday that Putin should not be allowed to remain in power. Earlier today, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied the US has any plans to bring about regime change in Russia
• The Russian-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine said it could hold a referendum soon on joining Russia, according to Reuters news agency, which quoted the republic's news outlet, citing its separatist leader
• In response, Ukraine's foreign affairs ministry said any referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine will be "null and void"
• In southern Ukraine, refugees are being "forced" to flee to Russian-occupied territories, or to Russia itself, according to a Ukrainian Red Cross volunteer who spoke to the BBC

Wyre Davies
BBC News, Dnipro

Image source, Getty Images

A resident of the besieged southern port city of Mariupol has told the BBC she, and hundreds of other residents, were given “no option” but to leave for Russian-held parts of Ukraine or Russia itself.

Asked whether residents of the city have been “forcibly evacuated” by occupying Russian forces, Irina says: “Yes, I would say so… If we are completely honest, all of us were taken forcibly.”

Irina, a Red Cross volunteer in Mariupol who was allowed to keep her documents, says everyone from the eastern side of the city were taken to the unrecognised Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) - a Russian-occupied territory Moscow recognises as independent.

Once there, she says, people had to decide whether to stay in the DPR or go to Russia.

Although she and her daughter were allowed to go and stay with relatives in Russia, Irina says “some elderly people that I know and whom I met at the distribution point did not know where they were headed and what for".

"They thought they would be able to stay in Rostov for a couple of months… and then maybe come back to Mariupol. Instead, they were taken to Samara [in Russia]. They said they had no idea what to do there, and the accommodation there is provided only for two weeks.”

Mariupol has been hit hard by Russian attacks, with thousands of residents forced to flee the city after water and electricity supplies were cut off.

Oleh Chernysh
BBC News Ukrainian

Image source, Wild Animals Shelter

There are growing fears for thousands of animals suffering from cold, hunger and stress in Ukraine's zoos, parks and rescue centres amid the fighting with Russia.

Vitaly Ilchenko, who runs an ecopark near Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, said part of it had been occupied by Russian forces and three staff members were killed trying to get food to the animals.

Some deer, elk and red wolves had been released, as well as some birds, he said, as they could survive in the local habitat.

But he said he feared the park's lions and tigers, including its star attraction, Simba, could starve to death.

Image source, Karina Detiuk/Facebook

Staff at the state zoo in the centre of Kharkiv have also struggled to keep the animals fed and warm.

"Our monkeys need fruit and vegetables, our predators need meat and so on," Karina Detiuk, the zoo's deputy director, told the BBC.

"We are doing the impossible trying to keep them alive. Our wolves are howling worse than the air-raid sirens and it is heart-breaking."

Natalya Popova, who runs the Wild Animals Shelter near Kyiv's main international airport, said the animals were so stressed by the noise of Russian shelling that many started thrashing about in their cages and injured themselves.

"One lioness injured her paw and could not stand on it. A young roe threw herself against a wall and died, after twisting her neck," she said.

Sasha Schlichter
BBC World Service

Ukraine's military intelligence chief has warned Russia is trying to apply what he calls the "Korean scenario" to Ukraine, having failed to take the capital and depose the legitimate government.

Kyrylo Budanov says Vladimir Putin's priorities are the east and the south of Ukraine, after his offensive largely stalled.

If he's able to connect that territory, he says Putin would then try to foist a demarcation line separating that area from the rest of Ukraine - a bit like after the Korean war.

But, he says, one of Russia's main problems is establishing and maintaining a land corridor between the east and Crimea. In its way stands the "unbreakable" Mariupol.

In any case, predicts General Budanov, this quasi-state would be unviable, given the resistance of the local population and the fact we are about to witness what he calls a "total partisan safari".

Photojournalists on the ground in Ukraine have taken these striking images showing the aftermath of Saturday's attack in Lviv.

A fuel storage facility and a factory were hit by Russian cruise missiles, resulting in a raging inferno and thick plumes of black smoke.

The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said five people were injured in the attack.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

French President Emmanuel Macron is warning against the verbal escalation of the war in Ukraine, a day after his American counterpart Joe Biden described Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a butcher and said he shouldn't be allowed to remain in power.

Macron told French media the goal was for a ceasefire in Ukraine and then the withdrawal of Russian troops.

He said this wouldn't be possible with an escalation through words or actions.

US authorities have denied Biden was calling for regime change in Russia following his unscripted comments during a visit to Poland.

Macron has maintained communication with the Russian president throughout the Ukraine crisis and said he would speak to Putin in the next two days to organise the evacuation of civilians from the heavily bombarded port city of Mariupol.

Image source, Reuters

A month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there are fears that Russian saboteurs may be operating within the country. But how much is fact and based on credible intelligence, and how much is mass hysteria fuelled by social media?

Bohdan Mylko, a 22-year-old engineer found out the hard way. Police showed up at his door, on the northern edge of Odesa, asking about a red light in his bedroom window.

"It's paranoia, based on fake news about red lights being a sign to the Russians. I had to go to the police station and get my documents checked, make a statement, and get my photo taken," he told the BBC's Andrew Harding in Odesa.

Out in the street, there are nightly patrols by concerned citizens who stop people they encounter, to check documents.

Capt Volodymir Kalina from the Odesa police says that it is a fact that there are Russian agents and Ukrainian citizens working "to distract us, to make us pay attention to the wrong places - to clear us from one part of the city so they can carry out their work in another area".

He acknowledges that there is disinformation too.

Analysts say it is true that Ukrainians or Russians are providing information to the Russian military.

Ukrainian media has broadcast numerous videos showing police arresting alleged Russian saboteurs.

President Volodymyr Zelensky was also shown handing out medals to a group of police security agents who apprehended suspected Russian agents.

But it is worth noting, writes the BBC's Andrew Harding, that for all the fear fuelled by such reports, the evidence suggests that a few isolated Russian cells have, so far, been remarkably unsuccessful.

Image source, Reuters

Canada says it can provide more oil, gas and uranium to help solve the global energy crisis.

Prices have soared as a result of Russian supplies being squeezed in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says many countries are committed "to help as much as we can in terms of displacing Russian oil and gas".

The world's fourth biggest oil producer has committed to exporting an extra 200,000 barrels of oil.

The country's biggest pipeline company Enbridge told the BBC it is "prepared to do what we can to increase energy security for both North America and Europe".

Russia is trying to split Ukraine in two to create a Moscow-controlled region after failing to take over the whole country, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence has said.

Reuters news agency reports Kyrylo Budanov saying in a statement that Russia is looking to "create North and South Korea in Ukraine," adding his country will soon launch guerrilla warfare in Russian-occupied territory.

Musicians in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv have performed an emotional concert in a metro station, which is being used as a makeshift shelter.

Kharkiv has been the target of intense Russian bombardment for weeks, leaving residents to take shelter in bunkers and metro stations.

The concert marked the opening day of the Kharkiv Music Festival.

The Russia-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine could hold a referendum soon on joining Russia, local separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik has said, according to Russia's state-owned news agency RIA.

In February Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he was recognising the independence of the two breakaway regions in the south-east of Ukraine.

Image source, Reuters

The United States has no strategy of regime change for Russia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.

In a speech in Warsaw on Saturday, President Joe Biden said Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, "cannot remain in power".

"I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else," Blinken said on Sunday, while on a visit to Israel.

"As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter.

"In this case, as in any case, it’s up to the people of the country in question, it’s up to the Russian people," Blinken added.

Image source, Reuters

Ukraine's new agriculture minister Mykola Solskyi says the country's ability to export grain is getting worse by the day and would only improve if the war with Russia ends.

Speaking in a televised briefing, Solskyi says Ukraine, one of the biggest grain exporters in the world, would normally be exporting 4-5 million tonnes of grain per month - a volume that has fallen to just a few hundred thousand tonnes.

"The impact (on global markets) is direct, dramatic and large. And it continues. Every day the situation will become more and more difficult," he says.

Fergal Keane
BBC News, Lviv

Image source, Getty Images

Ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion.

Most head west to the relative safety of cities like Lviv - and many continue onwards to neighbouring countries.

After nearly a month reporting on refugees, I have taken to calling this extraordinary evacuation the "Rescue Express".

It has come at great human cost: 33 railway staff have been killed. Tracks and stations have been bombed.

Yet, millions of Ukrainians have taken trains from as far south as Odesa on the Black Sea, from Kharkiv close to the Russian border in the north-east, from the Donbas and from Kyiv, and numerous smaller stations in between.

I met some of those who took the 91/92 train between Kyiv and Lviv.

We wait among the anxious and exhausted, the families calming scared children, the elderly woman wrapped in a blanket and pulling a suitcase. She looks as if she cannot possibly walk another step. But she will trudge forward when the all-clear is given.

This is not a place of options. Go forward, or run the risk of the war catching up with you.

Read more about the perilous journeys Ukrainians are taking to escape their war-torn country.

US President Joe Biden's comment that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power" has prompted strong criticism from veteran US diplomat Richard Haass.

The comments "made a difficult situation more difficult and a dangerous situation more dangerous", tweeted Mr Haass, who is president of the US Council on Foreign Relations.

"That is obvious," he added. "Less obvious is how to undo the damage, but I suggest his chief aides reach their counterparts & make clear the US is prepared to deal with this Russian government."

Mr Haass returned to the subject after the White House qualified President Biden's remarks, saying: "The White House walk back of @POTUS, external regime change call is unlikely to wash.

"Putin will see it as confirmation of what he’s believed all along. Bad lapse in discipline that runs risk of extending the scope and duration of the war."

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Western governments to supply planes, tanks and missile defence systems to his country.

In an impassioned, late-night video address, he said heavy weapons which could defend freedom in Europe were instead gathering dust in stockpiles.

Mr Zelensky complained that Russian aircraft could not be shot down with machine guns.

"What is Nato doing? Is it being run by Russia? What are they waiting for? It's been 31 days. We are only asking for 1% of what Nato has, nothing more," he added.

Slovakia's prime minister, Eduard Heger, confirmed to the BBC that his country was willing to send its arsenal of Soviet-made S-300 air defence missiles to Ukraine if a replacement could be provided.

Image source, Reuters

Russian general Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, who reportedly died on Saturday, is highest ranked officer to be killed, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.

Experts say low morale among Russian troops has forced senior officers closer to the front line.

Our security correspondent Frank Gardner says the reported deaths could partly be a result of generals having to get close to the fighting to dislodge their troops from getting bogged down.

Russian military doctrine allows for almost no initiative among corporals and sergeants, with junior ranks always waiting for orders from above.

A retired British Army officer said the generals' deaths also suggested a "highly successful sniper campaign which could degrade the Russian command structures".

You can read more from Frank Gardner here.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, EPA

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power", US President Joe Biden said about his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin during a speech in Poland's capital Warsaw on Saturday.

This was quickly followed by the White House saying Biden wasn't calling for regime change, but was instead making a point about Putin not being allowed to exercise power over his neighbours.

This was clearly an attempt at rolling back - the concern is that this is going to put more pressure on Putin and make him more uneasy.

Given that he is the head of a country that is struggling militarily, and is in control of a nuclear arsenal, the concern on the Americans' part is that they don't want to back Putin into a corner.

Calling out for regime change directly could cause instability and increase unpredictability.

And the last thing you want in these circumstances is unpredictability.