George Wright
BBC News

Image source, Reuters

Atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine have sparked widespread accusations of war crimes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the incidents in Bucha - where at least 500 people have been found dead since the Russians left - "real genocide".

Genocide is widely seen as the most serious crime against humanity and is defined as a mass extermination of a particular group of people.

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki agrees that the killings in Bucha and other towns near the capital Kyiv "must be called acts of genocide and be dealt with as such".

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said attacks on civilians in Bucha do not "look far short of genocide".

Image source, Getty Images

Now US President Joe Biden has accused Russian forces of committing acts of "genocide" in Ukraine and said Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to "wipe out the idea" of a Ukrainian identity.

But many countries have stopped short of using the word to describe what's happening in Ukraine - French President Emmanuel Macron says he is reluctant to use the term and warned against an "escalation of rhetoric".

But other experts in the field of genocide say it's too early to define Russian atrocities as being in that category.

Read the full story here.

Image source, Getty Images

The US still considers the embattled city of Mariupol to be contested and not completely under the control of Russian forces, a senior US defence official has said.

Russia has claimed that over 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in Mariupol, where fighting has raged since the beginning of the war.

Speaking to reporters at a briefing, the official said that Russian airstrikes remain concentrated in Mariupol and in the JFO [Joint Force Operations] area, referring to the area in which Ukrainian forces are fighting in the eastern Donbas.

The average number of Russian air sorties over the last 24 hours has been approximately 150, which the official said was a slight decrease from the previous daily average of 200.

The US also expects to deliver more 'Switchblade' drones to Ukraine in the coming days. On Tuesday, the official said that a "significant" number of the first batch of 100 had already arrived.

He added that the US is exploring a number of locations on Nato's eastern flank to train Ukrainian troops on how to use the Switchblades.

Bethany Bell
BBC News, Vienna

Image source, Reuters

The European security body, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has been investigating events in Ukraine.

In a report, which investigated events in late February and March, it said there was evidence of violations by Russian forces, including breaches of the right to live, sexual violence, extra-judicial killings, forced deportations, the use of human shields and the disappearance of journalists and human rights campaigners.

It also said humanitarian convoys had been attacked.

It said the attack on the Mariupol maternity hospital on 9 March was carried out by Russia - a charge Moscow has denied.

The report said another attack on 16 March on the Mariupol Drama theatre, where civilians were taking refuge, was a war crime.

The OSCE report said Ukraine also appeared to have committed violations, especially in its treatment of prisoners of war, but that Russia's transgressions were far greater.

When the Russians retreated from Bucha, a once-peaceful and little-known suburb of Kyiv, a massive operation began to find and document the dead.

The BBC's Joel Gunter joined local police officers and bereaved families as they carried out the grim task.

Warning: This article contains graphic images.

Image source, Getty Images

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen says she will propose closer relations between Nato and Russia if she wins power.

At a news conference, the far-right politician called for a “strategic rapprochement” between the two once the war in Ukraine was over.

She added that she would pull France out of Nato’s military command structure, if she proved victorious.

But she said she would continue to respect a key Nato pact under which an attack on one member of the military alliance is seen as an attack on all 30 members.

Russia has opposed any expansion by Nato towards its borders - including any effort by its neighbour Ukraine to join the military alliance. Nato has sent weapons to the Ukrainian army during the conflict.

Le Pen will battle Emmanuel Macron for the presidency in a run-off election later this month.

Some have accused her of being too close to Russia.

She has publicly condemned the invasion of Ukraine, but visited President Putin before the previous French election in 2017. Her party has also used Russian loans.

Ukraine continues to deny Russian reports of more than 1,000 marines surrendering in the strategic, besieged port city of Mariupol.

Speaking to the BBC, Petro Andriuschenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, has dismissed Russia's statements as "impossible".

He says Ukraine still holds several areas of the city.

"They don't control our harbour, they don't control Azovstal [iron and steel works]," Andriuschenko says.

Russian forces were also not controlling half of the eastern district of Livoberezhnyi, the biggest part of Prymorskyi in the north or half of the city's central district.

The BBC cannot currently verify his comments as the full picture of what is going on in the city is still unclear.

The map above shows the latest information we have from the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War.

Image source, .

Alistair Coleman
BBC Monitoring

Image source, Rossiya 24

The BBC says that a video carrying its branding which claims that last week’s missile attack on a railway station was carried out by Ukraine is a fake.

The clip gives the false impression that the BBC has confirmed the missile which killed dozens of people at Kramatorsk was fired by the Ukrainian armed forces.

No such video has been produced by the BBC, and our investigation into the attack is ongoing. It has not yet been possible to verify the source of the missile.

The clip appears to have originated among pro-Kremlin accounts on social media app Telegram, but has spread across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

It has also been aired on Russian State TV.

The stilted use of language, a non-BBC spelling of “Zelensky”, and use of footage of dead bodies all point to the video being a fake. BBC editorial guidelines restrict the use of such images without strong justification, and are always preceded by a warning.

The press office said: “The BBC is taking action to have the video removed. We urge people not to share it and to check stories on the BBC News website.”

Image source, Reuters

More now on the pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been arrested by the Ukrainian authorities.

The 67-year-old is seen as President Vladimir Putin's closest ally in Ukraine.

A short time ago, Russia commented on the arrest - insisting Mr Medvedchuk had no back channel of communication to the Kremlin.

Asked about a Ukrainian proposal to swap Mr Medvedchuk for detained Ukrainians in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the wealthy businessman was a Ukrainian citizen and a foreign politician.

The comments indicate the Russian leadership is distancing itself from Mr Medvedchuk.

You can read more about his arrest here.

The Kremlin has called US President Joe Biden's description of Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide "unacceptable".

As we have been reporting, Mr Biden said there was evidence of genocidal acts by Russian troops.

This was the first time he used the word genocide - defined under international law as a mass extermination of a particular group of people - in relation to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has said it categorically disagrees with the US president.

"We consider this kind of effort to distort the situation unacceptable," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

"This is hardly acceptable from a president of the United States."

Footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defence shows the extent of the damage in Mariupol.

It comes amid growing signs that Russia could be on the brink of capturing the southern port city, which once had a population of some 450,000 people.

Mariupol's mayor says 21,000 civilians have been killed during weeks of intense Russia bombardment, while 100,00 people are still waiting to be evacuated.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who has been visiting the Ukrainian town of Bucha, has said the country was "a crime scene".

"We're here because we have reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed," he told reporters.

"We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth. That requires independent, impartial investigation," he said.

He added an ICC forensic team was to begin work in the town.

Bucha is said to have been the scene of hundreds of civilian killings which Ukraine has blamed on the Russian forces which occupied it for several weeks. Russia denies responsibility for the deaths.

Image source, Paul Wennerholm/TT News Agency/Reuters

Finland will make a decision within weeks on whether to join Nato, its prime minister has confirmed.

Sanna Marin was speaking at a joint news conference in Stockholm with her Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson.

Previously, most Finns had not wanted to join Nato, but latest polls have suggested a change in opinion.

Sweden is also considering signing up to the 30-member Western military alliance.

Russia has warned both countries against the idea, arguing that it would not bring stability to Europe.

Moscow said it launched its invasion in part to try and deter Ukraine from joining the alliance.

Image source, Getty Images

On Tuesday night, US President Biden accused Russian forces of committing genocide in Ukraine, saying Vladimir Putin was trying to "wipe out the idea" of a Ukrainian identity.

Now French President Emmanuel Macron has declined to repeat his accusation, saying leaders should be careful with language.

Speaking to French television as part of his current re-election campaign, he said he refused to get involved in an "escalation of words".

"I would say that Russia unilaterally unleashed the most brutal war, that it is now established that war crimes were committed by the Russian army and that it is now necessary to find those responsible and make them face justice," Macron said.

"But at the same time I look at the facts and I want to try as much as possible to continue to be able to stop this war and to rebuild peace. I'm not sure that verbal escalations serve this cause."

Image source, EPA

As the scale of devastation and death in towns around Kyiv emerges, the deputy mayor of Dnipro, in central Ukraine, says the city's mortuaries are crammed with the unclaimed bodies of Russian soldiers.

Mikhail Lysenko said there were more than 1,500 corpses in four refrigerators, the AFP news agency reported.

He said city officials did not want to cremate or bury them in mass graves.

Lysenko appealed to the mothers of Russian soldiers to speak to their dead sons' commanders so as to claim back their bodies.

Anna Foster
Reporting from Kyiv

The Presidents of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have just visited Borodyanka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, to survey the damage caused by five weeks of Russian occupation.

Every building in sight has had its windows shattered. Deep holes in the road mark where Russian shells hit during the fierce fighting.

While I was there, the sound of loud crashing echoed around the square as a digger pulled large slabs away from the side of a badly-damaged, blackened building. The centre of it has collapsed completely.

One man swept the black dust from the sides of the road into small, neat piles. It’s the smallest detail, but it makes a difference. It helps this place feel like it’s fixing itself.

There’s a team of engineers on call ready to deal with reports of unexploded ammunition.

On the way to Borodyanka we passed a ditch at the side of the road, with around 20 unexploded shells neatly placed in it. A single thin ribbon of plastic tape ran around the perimeter of the ditch to protect the unaware from stumbling in.

Making these towns safe again for people to return to will be a huge job.

Damian McGuiness
In Berlin

Image source, EPA

Some German politicians have expressed irritation and surprise that Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is not welcome in Kyiv - saying his planned visit with leaders from Poland and the Baltic states would have shown German solidarity with Ukraine.

In an angry tweet, Aydan Özoguz, a leading member of Mr Steinmeier's Social Democrat party, said it was irritating, and not particularly clever for Ukraine to demand a lot of support from Germany but to be unwilling to see the president.

But many in Germany say they understand Ukraine’s position, and want Berlin to do more to support Kyiv - including acting quicker to supply arms and to ban Russian energy.

As foreign minister, under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Steinmeier tried to achieve peace with Russia through trade, diplomacy and energy links.

Last week he admitted he had been wrong about Russia, saying that German policy towards Moscow had failed and that he was mistaken for trying to build bridges with Putin and for supporting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The defence of Mariupol has involved the Azov battalion - a force smaller than 1,000 men, who make up a tiny part of Ukraine's overall forces, but who've been in the headlines ever since Russia's war began.

Their presence in Mariupol has been a key focus of Moscow's propaganda war.

Russia refers to its invasion as a "special military operation", claiming it is to "demilitarise" and "denazify" Ukraine.

The Azov battalion take their name from the Azov Sea on which Mariupol lies. It did start out as an ultranationalist militia in 2014, when it was formed to resist Russian-backed separatists who seized part of eastern Ukraine.

But it has since been brought under the oversight of the Ukrainian government as part of the National Guard. It has attracted a mix of nationalists, ultranationalists and other young men united by their loathing of Russia, and many of them are Russian-speaking themselves.

Image source, b

Emily McGarvey
BBC News Live reporter

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting, Russia claims more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered in the key southern port city of Mariupol. This remains unconfirmed and Ukraine claims some marines have actually broken through to fight alongside the Azov battalion - a militia linked to far-right nationalists and now part of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Azov fighters and the marines have managed to defend pockets of the besieged city over the past few weeks despite dwindling resources and a fierce Russian onslaught.

If marines were surrendering en masse it would not be surprising, says Dr Aglaya Snetkov, lecturer in International Politics at University College London.

"Their supplies have been degrading, they've run out of food, ammunition and water - Ukrainian soldiers have posted online that their only option is either surrender or death but Kyiv authorities shut that claim down" she said.

But if thousands of Azov fighters are similarly forced to surrender, they would face a "horror show" at the hands of Russian soldiers, she added.

"Many will be killed and many will be made to go in front of Russian TV cameras to recount what they’ve done.

"It will effectively be the end of the Azov battalion which is a major part of the Russian narrative as to why they’re engaged in what they’re doing in Ukraine....to fight the 'Nazis'."

Gaining full control of Mariupol would be a major strategic gain for Russian forces. It would allow them to redeploy thousands of troops further east to focus on the new offensive planned there.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania

We're expecting a visit to Kyiv by the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for talks with their Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Zelensky has described the trip as a "gesture of support" for Ukraine.

Officials say the meeting will concentrate on ways to assist Ukrainian civilians as well as the military.

It comes a day after German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier cancelled plans to join the group. Ukraine had made clear that he was not welcome, amid criticism of him for being too close to Russia during his time as Germany's foreign minister.

An aide to President Zelensky says he expected the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to make a visit.

Image source, Getty Images

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has been attending a virtual meeting to discuss economic and development issues in Russia's Arctic territories and the northern sea route.

In his remarks, the president did not refer directly to the situation in Ukraine, but said that the refusal of western nations to cooperate normally with Russia - including on energy resources - has hurt European countries and the United States alike.

He said "unfriendly countries" were destroying supply chains in the Arctic.

While Putin acknowledged that Russia has also suffered as a result, he said that it has opened "new possibilities" to send energy resources to countries where they are "really needed".

Russian cooperation with other Arctic Council countries - Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and the US - have largely been severed since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.