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The Russian defence ministry has announced a ceasefire in Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol - starting on Thursday morning - to allow civilians to be evacuated.

"For this humanitarian operation to succeed, we propose to carry it out with the direct participation of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross," the ministry said in a statement quoted by Agence France-Press on Wednesday.

The humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia - through the Russian-controlled port town of Berdiansk - will open at 1000 local time (0700 GMT)

Ukraine has not commented on the announcement.

Previous attempts to establish a ceasefire in Mariupol have collapsed amid accusations of bad faith from both sides. Russia has also been accused of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians to Russia or Russian-controlled areas.

The announcement comes as new satellite photos showed the destruction caused by the shelling.

The images, released by the Earth observation company Maxar, showed that residential areas have been reduced to rubble and highlighted Russian artillery cannons in firing positions on the outskirts of the city.

Image source, .

Image source, Getty Images

Oil prices have fallen sharply after reports that the US is set to take new steps to bring down high fuel costs.

The Biden administration is reportedly considering the release of up to 180m barrels of oil in the coming months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

If confirmed, this will be the largest-ever release since the reserve was created in 1974.

Soon after the reports, morning trade in Asia saw US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate at 5.6% lower, while Brent Crude was down by 4.8% lower.

The war in Ukraine has rocked global energy markets in recent weeks over concerns that supplies will be cut.

Read more on the Biden administration's fuel plans here

Hannah Chornous
BBC News, Kyiv

The empty streets of Kyiv looked even more deserted on Thursday, on a chilly day with a light drizzle. The reaction to Russia's claims to reduce military activity around the capital was equally dull.

"It does not work this way," Anya told me, sitting in a café on a cobbled street in the city centre. "They should just leave our country."

"We must not give the Russians any concessions. We should stand our ground firmly, till the end," her friend Dasha added. "Otherwise, it will be the same we had here for eight years, this constant fear of having an aggressor nearby."

Meanwhile, serviceman Oleksandr says he is confident that the Russian troops will not get to Kyiv. "Surely it will all be over," he said cheerfully while waiting for his sandwich. "It just requires more time."

"We really want all of this to end. Everyone wants to go back to their peaceful lives," Maryna who works in the nearby Bassano café told me. "But I do not think it is over yet."

Her restaurant relocated from Donetsk to Kyiv in 2014 when the war with the Russia-backed militants in the east of Ukraine broke out. "We thought that was it. But now we have déjà vu," she says.

This time they do not intend to leave. "We hope for the best," Maryna explains.

Image source, Reuters

White House spokesperson Kate Bedingfield says the US has information that Mr Putin "felt misled by the Russian military" and this has resulted in "persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership".

"Putin's war has been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long term and increasingly isolated on the world stage," she said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the assessments "discomforting" because an uninformed Putin could result in a "less than faithful" effort at ending the conflict through peace negotiations.

"The other thing is, you don't know how a leader like that is going to react to getting bad news," he said.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Fleming, the head of the UK's cyber-intelligence agency GCHQ, said the move added to indications Russia had "massively misjudged the situation" and had been forced to "significantly rethink".

In a rare speech he is due to deliver , externalin Australia on Thursday, Mr Fleming said beleaguered Russian troops had sabotaged their own equipment and accidentally shot down their own aircraft.

Read more about why Putin may not be getting the full picture of the war.

Image source, Reuters

If you're just joining us, here's a roundup of the latest:

• The White House says it has intelligence of tension between Vladimir Putin and his generals because the Russian president feels misled by them
• Pentagon spokesman John Kirby concurs, saying: "The fact that he [Putin] may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that's a little discomforting"
• Russian troops have accidentally shot down their own aircraft and have at times refused to obey orders, says Britain's cyber-intelligence agency, GCHQ
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cast doubt on Russia's claims it is de-escalating fighting in his country, calling it the precursor to "new strikes" in the eastern breakway Ukrainian region of Donbas
• The Russian rouble has rebounded to around the level it was when the war in Ukraine began, raising questions about the effectiveness of unprecedented sanctions by world powers
• Russia will continue to allow European countries to pay for its gas with euros and not roubles as it had previously threatened, the German government says
• Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine will start again online this Friday, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said

On the ground:

• Five weeks on, the invasion has sputtered to a bloody stalemate - Russia has failed to capture a single major city amid stout resistance from Ukrainian forces
• After indicating it would scale back operations to foster trust between the two sides, Russian forces reportedly escalated their bombardment in some areas on Wednesday
• Ukrainian officials say deadly shelling pounded Irpin, near Kyiv, and Chernihiv, while Russian troops also appeared to step up attacks in the Donbas region
• The UN is looking into claims that some residents of the besieged southern port of Mariupol have been forcibly taken to Russian-controlled areas or to Russia itself
• The US says that over the past 24 hours, Russia began to reposition less than a fifth of its forces around Kyiv, with troops moving to the north and some into Belarus
• Russian-backed separatists blame Ukrainian forces for a missile strike that reportedly killed two people at an apartment block in the city of Donetsk early on Wednesday

This is Jude Sheerin and Bernd Debusmann in Washington DC handing over to our colleagues Ayeshea Perera and Zubaidah Abdul Jalil in Singapore.

Image source, Getty Images

The Russian rouble has rebounded to around the level it was when the war in Ukraine began, after dropping dramatically in the face of global sanctions.

On Wednesday, the rouble was trading at 85 to the US dollar, about the same value it had before Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

It had fallen to a low of 150 roubles to the dollar on 7 March, when the Biden administration announced a ban on Russian oil and gas imports.

Russia has been forced to implement strict financial measures to inflate the rouble, including raising interest rates to 20% and introducing capital controls on Russians hoping to exchange their national currency for dollars or euros.

Experts warn, however, that Russia's central bank is taking risks by raising interest rates, which may eventually force Russians to circumvent capital controls and move currency in smaller amounts.

In a Wednesday address to Norway's parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the West to ratchet up sanctions on Russia.

"The stronger the sanctions packages are going to be, the faster we'll bring back peace," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

Despite Russian claims to be de-escalating fighting near Kyiv, Irpin's mayor says the town is facing "continuous" and deadly shelling.

Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said that on Wednesday the town had been struck by rockets, mortars and artillery.

"Obviously, it's not safe," he said. "Many people died from their [Russian] mines, from their artillery fire and a lot of people were shot down."

Markushyn also claimed that on two city streets, Russian forces shot women and "then were driving over them on tanks".

The BBC is unable to independently verify Markushyn's claims.

Irpin, which is about a 20-minute drive from Kyiv, has been the scene of intense fighting for weeks.

Read more about the battle for Irpin.

Image source, Getty Images

It could take at least a year for Ukraine to hold a referendum on its neutrality, according to the head of Ukraine's delegation at peace talks with Russia.

Ukrainian neutrality is a key Russian demand to end the war. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed he is open to that idea, provided that Ukraine receives security guarantees.

In a TV interview, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said that such a decision should ultimately be made by the people of Ukraine - rather than politicians - in a national referendum.

Declaring neutrality, he said, would require three million signatures to be registered.

"This is a big procedure that cannot take place outside of peaceful territory," he said.

Russia and the US are still co-operating on the International Space Station (ISS) despite their differences back on terra firma.

Earlier on Wednesday, Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov shared a capsule on a flight back to Earth from the ISS.

Vande Hei logged a US space-endurance record of 355 consecutive days in orbit as he finished his second ISS mission.

It was Dubrov's first space flight, while Shkaplerov was ending his rotation as the latest ISS commander, accumulating a total 708 days in space.

Image source, Getty Images

The administration of US President Joe Biden is reportedly considering releasing approximately one million barrels of oil a day from the country's strategic reserves.

According to Bloomberg, the oil would be released over the course of several months in a bid to bring down petrol prices, which have risen since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 March.

Unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg said the total amount of oil released could amount to 180 million barrels.

Biden is expected to speak about his administration's efforts to bring prices down on Thursday.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday shows that 41% of Americans believe Biden is to blame for higher fuel costs, with 24% saying sanctions against Russia caused prices to go up.

Image source, Getty Images

Responding to reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by his own generals about progress in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said a failure to speak "truth to power" is an "Achilles' heel" of authoritarian governments.

While Blinken did not comment on the reports directly, he said he believes that a weak point of autocracies is "that you don't have people in those systems who speak truth to power or lack the ability to speak truth to power".

"And I think that is something that we're seeing in Russia," he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the White House said intelligence suggests that Putin feels he is being misled by military advisers, which has resulted in tension in the Kremlin.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said US defence officials find the assessment "disconcerting", as it suggests Putin may not be aware of how his own military is performing on the battlefield and may result in a "less than faithful" effort at ending the fighting through peace talks.

Image source, Reuters

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine will start again online on 1 April, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia has said.

In an online post cited by Reuters, Arakhamia said Ukraine had proposed the leaders of both countries meet, but Russia declined, saying more work was needed on a draft treaty.

At the talks on Tuesday, Arakhamia said sufficient progress had been made to allow for a future meeting between Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia's Vladimir Putin and that proposals had been sent to Russia.

While Ukrainian officials have said there were some signs of optimism from peace talks, they have said they are waiting to see what claims by Russia that it plans to de-escalate fighting will mean on the ground.

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his country is at a "turning point".

He also cast doubt on Russia's claims it is de-escalating fighting in his country, calling it the precursor to "new strikes" in the eastern breakway Ukrainian region of Donbas.

In a televised address, Zelensky said that the "so-called withdrawal" of Russian forces away from Kyiv is "the consequence of the work of our defenders".

"We don't believe anyone. Not a single beautiful word," he said. "There's a real situation on the battlefield and that's the most important thing. We will not give anything away."

Similarly, Zelensky said that while peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are ongoing, for now "these are only words, no specifics yet".

Zelensky also said Ukraine has the right to ask for weapons from the international community, including aircraft and artillery.

"Freedom must be armed as well as tyranny," he said.

Russian hackers have recently attempted to penetrate the networks of Nato and the ministries of defence of several Eastern European countries, according to a report from Google's Threat Analysis Group.

The report did not say which militaries had been targeted in what Google described as "credential phishing campaigns" launched by a Russian-based group called Coldriver, or Callisto.

The campaigns were conducted using newly created Gmail accounts.

Google says that while the "success rate of these campaigns is unknown", it is not aware of any Gmail accounts being compromised.

US officials have repeatedly warned that Russia and Russian-backed hacker groups pose a threat.

Russia has denied accusations of mounting cyber-attacks on Western targets.

Image source, Getty Images

Russian troops have accidentally shot down their own aircraft and have at times refused to obey orders, according to Britain's cyber-intelligence agency, GCHQ.

In a speech to be delivered at the Australian National University on Thursday, Sir Jeremy Fleming will say it is clear that Vladimir Putin "massively misjudged" the situation in Ukraine, and "over-estimated" the capabilities of Russia's military.

"We’ve seen Russian soldiers – short of weapons and morale - refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft," says the text of the speech on GCHQ's website, external.

Echoing comments from US and Ukrainian officials this week, Fleming will also say that Putin's advisers "are afraid to tell him the truth".

Even so, Fleming will say that "what's going on and the extent of these misjudgements must be crystal clear to the regime".

The speech also notes that GCHQ believes Russia has made a "sustained" attempt to disrupt Ukraine through cyber-attacks.

"And we've certainly seen indicators which suggest that Russia's cyber actors are looking for targets in countries that oppose their actions," he said.

Soraya Ali
BBC Africa

Image source, DESMOND MUOKWUDO

"My government just tells me to come back home, but there's nothing waiting for me in Nigeria," says Desmond Chinaza Muokwudo, a 30-year-old Nigerian student, who recently fled from Ukraine to Berlin.

He is shattered. Once a pipeline welder, he saved up for 11 years to study in Europe. His parents sold their land to help him pursue his dream of studying international relations.

He had been in Ukraine for three months when Russia invaded the country, forcing him to leave.

Muokwudo is one of an estimated 16,000 African students who were living in Ukraine and are now scrambling to continue their studies. Many fled the country amid reports of racial abuse and violence.

"I have sacrificed too much to get here. I have to stay in Europe, and I have to get an education," Muokwudo said.

Read the rest of the story here.

Image source, Reuters

A Ukrainian refugee from Mariupol has told the BBC that she and others from her area were taken to Russia, despite making it clear they did not want to go.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC's Newshour programme, she described being loaded onto a bus by soldiers who said they would be safe.

Later they learned the troops were Russian and the bus was heading towards Russia, she said.

They were taken in a convoy of about 10 buses, she says, and went through rebel-held territory in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

"We all shouted to tell them to stop there, but they refused to stop there," she added.

Their bus continued to travel to a refugee camp in a sports centre in Russia.

There they were told they would be sent to economically depressed areas in Russia where people were needed for work.

The next day, she says she boarded a train to Tula - about 200km south of Moscow - where passengers were met by police and taken to buses.

"We put our bags on the ground and said 'we're not going anywhere'," she added.

She says she and her companions waited until the buses left then bought train tickets to St Petersburg, and from there travelled by bus to Tallinn in Estonia, where they plan to stay until the fighting stops.

"Russia is being extremely dishonest," she claimed.

"They have double standards. On the one hand they are killing our people and on the other they want to look like they are trying to help us."

The BBC has not been able to independently verify her account, but is aware of other, similar accounts.

A Kremlin spokesman has told the BBC claims that people are being taken to Russia against their will are "a lie".

More now from Pentagon spokesman John Kirby's briefing for reporters earlier.

He says the Pentagon agrees with assessments - mentioned earlier by White House director of communications Kate Bedingfield - that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not being fully informed about events in Ukraine.

Kirby said the Pentagon saw this assessment as "disconcerting".

"It's his military. It's his war. He chose it...the fact that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that's a little discomforting," he said.

Kirby also said that an uninformed Putin could result in a "less than faithful" effort at ending the conflict through negotiations.

"If he's not fully informed of how poorly he's doing, then how are his negotiators going to come up with an agreement?" Kirby asked.

Additionally, a senior defence official said that Russian forces are walking away from the Chernobyl nuclear facility, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986. The area was taken by Russia days after they invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

Image source, Getty Images

The US Department of Commerce has added 73 planes it says have recently traveled to Russia to a list of aircraft that have violated US export controls put in place after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On 18 March, 99 aircraft were included in an initial list, including a private jet belonging to Russian billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich.

US authorities have warned that providing service to these aircraft anywhere in the world - including inside Russia - may lead to heavy fines and potential jail time.

In a statement at the time, the department said that any refueling, maintenance, or repair work of any of the listed aircraft - as well as the provision of spare parts - violates US export controls.

The regulations apply to any aircraft which has more than 25% US-origin content that was re-exported to Russia after new controls came into effect on 24 February, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Image source, Getty Images

The moving words of Ukrainian refugees and a performance by the country's 2016 Eurovision-winning singer provided powerful moments at a Concert For Ukraine in Birmingham, England.

Jamala, who fled Kyiv with her children at the start of the war, gave an impassioned rendition of her Eurovision-winning track 1944.

It was inspired by her great-grandmother, who was among thousands of Tatars who were forcibly deported from Crimea by Russian dictator Joseph Stalin during World War Two.

Image source, Getty Images

The harrowing accounts of two Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion were read by actors Tamsin Greig and Eddie Marsan, accompanied by Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti.

Greig read the words of Natalya, who spent three days sheltering in a basement in Kharkiv before leaving on an overcrowded train, later finding out her apartment block and university had been destroyed.

Then, Marsan voiced the words of Artem, who spent four days travelling to Romania with his traumatised children.

Image source, Getty Images

Singer songwriters Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello and Nile Rodgers were among the artists performing at the Concert For Ukraine. It raised £13.4m for the Disasters Emergency Committee humanitarian appeal, external.

Image source, Getty Images