Image source, Getty Images

The Czech Republic has reportedly become the first EU country to directly supply Ukraine with offensive weapons since the Russian invasion began 41 days ago.

Senior Czech officials told the Reuters news agency that the country has sent Soviet made T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, confirming local media reports that showed a train loaded with five tanks and five fighting vehicles.

Defence Minister Jana Cernochova told parliament she would not confirm or deny details of Czech aid to Ukraine.

"I will only assure you that the Czech Republic...is helping Ukraine as much as it can and will continue to help by (supplying) military equipment, both light and heavy," Jana Cernochova said.

It comes amid reports that the German government earlier this week lifted objections to a private Czech arms dealer exporting 56 ex-East German troop carriers to Ukraine.

The US ambassador to the UN has said she understands Ukrainian President Zelensky's frustration with the UN Security Council in light of Russian denials of war crimes before the body on Tuesday.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the BBC that Zelensky's appearance before the body was "extraordinarily powerful" and added that Western nations must do all they can to "hold Russia accountable" for alleged war crimes committed in occupied areas.

Her interview is below.

Joel Gunter
BBC News, in Lviv, Ukraine

Volodymyr Abramov was desperately trying to put out the fire in his home, in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, and calling out for his son-in-law to help.

Russian troops had smashed through the front gates of Volodymyr's home, opened fire at the house, and dragged Volodymyr, 72, his daughter Iryna, 48, and her husband Oleg, 40, out into the yard.

The soldiers took Oleg out beyond the gate on to the pavement, Volodymyr said, and threw a grenade in through the front door of the house that exploded with a deafening bang and set the house on fire.

Volodymyr grabbed a small fire extinguisher and tried in vain to extinguish the flames. "Where is Oleg? Oleg will help!" he shouted to his daughter.

But the reply came from one of the Chechen soldiers, he said. "Oleg will not help you anymore."

They found Oleg on the pavement outside the gate, and it was clear from the way he was lying that he had been forced to kneel and shot in the head at point blank range, Iryna said.

He was a welder who lived a quiet life on the corner of Yablonska Street in Bucha, who was taken out of his home and killed in an apparent execution.

Read more accounts of alleged Russian war crimes here.

Image source, Getty Images

The top US general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, told US lawmakers on Tuesday that the US should look into sending more troops to Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression.

In his first testimony to Congress since the invasion began, Milley said that the US troops should cycle through bases created by Nato partners, rather than remain stationed there in a permanent capacity.

“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said.

“I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere - they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”

He went on to call the war in Ukraine "the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world in my 42 years of service in uniform".

"The islands of the Pacific and the beaches of Normandy bore witness to the incredible tragedy that befalls humanity when nations seek power through military aggression across sovereign borders," Milley said.

"Despite the horrific assault on the institutions of freedom, it is heartening to see the world rally and say never again to the spectre of war in Europe."

Image source, Ukraine government

"The UN Security Council exists, and security in the world doesn't," Zelensky says in his nightly Facebook address after his virtual speech to the UN panel in New York on Tuesday.

The UN, he says, "is currently unable to carry out the functions for which it was created". He goes on to blame Russia - a permanent Security Council member, for its dysfunction.

Russia, Zelensky says, "discredits the UN and all other international institutions where it still participates".

The Ukrainian president has called for Russia to be removed from the panel, where it wields veto power, saying in his Facebook address that Russia's role at the UN is "to block everything constructive and use global architecture in order to spread lies and justify the evil it does".

"Now is a crucial moment, especially for Western leaders," he continues, calling for the next round of sanctions against Russia to be "commensurate with the gravity of the occupiers' war crimes".

Ukraine, he says, is preparing for visits from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell in the coming days.

"Now Kyiv is the capital of global democracy, the capital of the struggle for freedom for all on the European continent," says Zelensky.

Image source, AMBULANCEAID.CO.UK

Volunteers who fundraised to buy three ambulances and pack them with medical supplies for Ukraine said the trip from the UK "changed us all".

Andy Morgan, from Clacton, Essex, and others used their own money and fundraised to buy the ambulances.

Over the weekend they delivered the supplies and left the ambulances with medical teams in the city of Lviv.

"What we thought would be a simple journey has instead changed our lives," Morgan said.

Read more.

Image source, EPA

If you're just joining us, here is a round-up of the latest developments:

• Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a speech to the United Nations Security Council in which he outlined a list of alleged Russian atrocities
• Russia continues to deny any war crimes and its UN ambassador repeatedly rejected claims about bodies being found on the streets in Bucha
• The European Commission proposed a new round of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on coal imports

• More than 7.1 million people have been displaced by the war in Ukraine, part of more than 10 million people who have now fled their homes following the Russian invasion
• Spain has become the latest EU member to announce the expulsion of Russian diplomats following the global outcry over alleged civilian killings by Russian troops
• Nato's secretary general Jensen Stolenberg said Russia is likely to launch a new offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region in the next few weeks

Nick Beake
BBC News, Brussels

Image source, Getty Images

Across Europe, more Russian diplomats are packing their bags. Italy, Denmark and Sweden are the latest countries to announce expulsions, after similar decisions by France and Germany yesterday.

In Brussels, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – who is to visit Kyiv this week – accused Russia of waging a ruthless war against the Ukrainian people. A ban on importing Russian coal - which it's claimed would cost Moscow four billion Euros a year – was the most striking measure in the latest round of proposed EU sanctions.

But there is still no agreement on banning imports of Russian oil and gas. Payments for both continue to boost President Putin’s war chest.

The Nato Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, warned that Russia had not abandoned its invasion of Ukraine but was now focussing on seizing all of the Donbas region - and said there would be more western military help for President Zelensky’s force.

The details of additional aid will be discussed by Nato foreign ministers over the next 48 hours in Brussels. Before boarding his plane, the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of conducting a deliberate campaign of atrocities.

He said the US would be working with allies both to help Ukraine document these crimes and to increase further the pressure on Moscow.

Image source, Getty Images

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv came under attack while one of its teams was visiting on 4 April.

They were at an oncology hospital, which has been treating the wounded since the war began, when there were several explosions over the course of about 10 minutes, Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of mission in Ukraine said.

The staff took cover and were not injured but "as they were leaving the area, the MSF team saw injured people and at least one dead body" the charity said in a statement.

The team added that the regional paediatric hospital, about 300 metres away, was also hit.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify these claims.

Image source, Getty Images

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha.

Officials from Ukraine and Western countries have said there is evidence that Russia has committed war crimes.

Moscow denies the charge and has called the allegations a "monstrous forgery", as reported in the Russian state-owned RIA news agency.

The International Criminal Court has already begun investigating whether war crimes are taking place and Ukraine has also set up a team to gather evidence.

Image source, Getty Images

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the Spanish parliament that Spanish companies still operating in Russia should withdraw from the country.

He also cited the 1937 bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by Nazi war planes when he addressed the parliament earlier today.

Following his address to the UN, he appeared in front of MPs in Madrid on a video link to contemplate the current situation where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are living in fear without water, food or medicine.

Zelensky also said Europe must impose tougher sanctions to force Russia to seek peace.

Tom Bateman
BBC News in Zaporizhzhya

The messengers of war in Ukraine are Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp and Instagram.

People are looking at their phones nearly all the time. Messages or videos delivered in a pulse that steer their sense of what the future might bring, or which horrors have unfolded.

Liubov, aged 61, who lived in the southern port city of Mariupol, thrusts her phone towards me. It’s a picture of a block of flats eviscerated by an airstrike. Her thumb and forefinger tremble over the screen as she zooms in on the smashed remnants of her life.

“This is our apartment block - destroyed. This is my daughters’ apartment block. I’m just showing you our residential buildings that were shelled. Everything is on fire.”

At the refugee centre I’m approached by a man, Yevhenii Lysenko, who’s also from Mariupol. He’s been stuck in Zaporizhzhya and hasn’t heard from his wife Svetlana since their last contact in early March.

Yevhenii shows me his phone. He scrolls through pages of his text messages to his wife, asking where she is, whether she is safe.

He wants to make the trip to Mariupol, back across Russian lines - a near-impossible journey. I ask what he knows about his home.

“It doesn’t exist anymore, it’s been destroyed by shelling or an airstrike. So essentially there is nowhere for me to return to,” he says.

Image source, Getty Images

The news coming out of Ukraine in recent days has been very grim. So we'd thought we would bring you this story about a Ukrainian couple who have celebrated their wedding amid the rubble and debris of the country's second-largest city.

Anastasia Grachova and Anton Sokolov, who distribute medicines to people in need across Kharkiv, were married in the city's underground metro station, Reuters reported.

Russian forces have retreated from some parts of Ukraine in recent days, but Kharkiv in the north-east continues to face frequent shelling.

Local resident Maria Avdeeva, a research director at the European Expert Association, said she attended the wedding.

She added on Twitter: "Anton and Anastasia have no plans to go on a honeymoon anytime soon.

"One day, they want to go somewhere with a beach and palm trees. Before that happens, there is a war to win, and brutal days ahead. But yesterday, there was hope, and beauty, and love inside the ugliness."

Image source, Getty Images

James Clayton
North America technology reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Twitter has limited content from more than 300 official Russian government accounts, including that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The accounts will no longer be recommended in timelines, notifications or elsewhere on the site, Twitter said.

The accounts have previously been criticised for spreading misinformation during the Ukraine war, but unlike tweets from Russian state-affiliated media outlets, they have not previously been subject to specific moderation by Twitter.

Twitter has been severely limited in Russia since the Ukraine invasion.

The company said it would take action against any country which "restricts access to the open internet while they're engaged in armed conflict".

Read more.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has released a video on social media aimed at the Russian public in which he says the country's troops are committing atrocities in Ukraine, including the massacre of civilians and the raping of women.

In the video, published by No 10 Downing Street on its Twitter feed, Johnson encourages Russians to use a VPN internet connection to "access independent information" and then share the truth.

Speaking in Russian towards the end of the video, the prime minister says Vladimir Putin stands accused of war crimes, but that he doesn't believe the president is acting in the name of his people.

Warning: The video in this tweet contains graphic images which some may find upsetting.

Image source, Getty Images

Our colleagues at the BBC News Channel and World TV are holding the second Your Questions Answered show on the war in Ukraine on Thursday at 11:30 BST.

Presenter Tim Willcox will speak to experts on a range of aspects about the war - from how it is being fought, to how it may end and what the human consequences might be.

If you have a question you'd like answering, get in touch on Twitter using #BBCYourQuestions or email the team here.

The three allies known as AUKUS are to co-operate on research into hypersonic weapons and how to defend against them, the UK government has said.

The programme will be part of the defence alliance between the UK, US and Australia which was announced last year.

The move follows the development of hypersonic missiles by China and Russia and their purported use by Moscow in Ukraine last month.

Hypersonic weapons can exceed five times the speed of sound, making them harder to defend against, and are also able to fly at low altitudes - beyond the line of sight of ground-based radars.

The UK does not currently possess hypersonic missiles.

The US and Australia have an existing joint programme to develop the weapons, but the UK government stressed that the focus of the new venture would be on defence.

Image source, .

Yogita Limaye
Reporting from Bucha

Image source, Irina Abramova

The more you talk to people in Bucha, the more you learn of the terror people in the town have lived through.

Irina Abramova showed us the spot on the street outside her house where her husband, 40-year-old Oleg Abramov, was asked to kneel, and then shot in the head by Russian soldiers a month ago.

His body lay out on the street for four weeks. Blood stains are still visible.

Irina said she screamed at the troops and asked them to shoot her too.

"Their eyes were like ice," she said, tears running down her face. "My husband was not a soldier. We told them we are civilians. But they were inhuman."

She showed us the wedding ring her husband wore, which she now wears on a chain around her neck.

Image source, Irina Abramova

Kremlin's Nazi narrative about Ukraine has become gospelpublished at 18:15 British Summer Time 5 April 2022

18:15 BST 5 April 2022

Paul Adams
BBC Diplomatic correspondent

“We’re told that there can be no Nazis in Ukraine,” said Russia’s ambassador at the UN, Vasily Nebenzya. “Unfortunately they are running the show.”

This Kremlin narrative, that Ukraine has fallen under a collective Nazi spell, runs deeply through every Russian statement. It makes you wonder what diplomats stationed at Russia’s embassy in Kyiv until shortly before the war did with their time.

To be sure, Ukraine has its far-right elements. Some of them idolise Ukrainian politicians who sided with the Nazis against Russia during World War Two.

But the far right exists on the political fringes in Ukraine, as it does elsewhere in Europe.

An honest diplomatic assessment of events in Ukraine since 2014 would have revealed a country striving to become more democratic and less corrupt. Striving, above all, to chart an independent path, away from Moscow’s increasingly unwelcome attentions.

But the Kremlin’s Nazi narrative has become gospel. Ambassador Nebenzya’s final remarks were chilling.

“We came to you to Ukraine not to conquer lands,” he insisted. “We need to cut out the malignant Nazi tumour that is consuming Ukraine and would in time begin to consume Russia. And we will achieve that goal."