Image source, Reuters

Good morning to our UK audience. If you're just joining us, these are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.

• Nearly two-thirds of Ukraine's children - some 4.8 million - have been displaced since the start of the Russian invasion six weeks ago, according to the UN
• The UK has said it will “hold Russia to account” if it’s proven - as Ukrainian forces have claimed - that the country used chemical weapons in an attack on Mariupol
• Mariupol's deputy mayor has dismissed several reports on Monday that the besieged port city might fall to Russian forces as "fake"
• The UK has said that fighting is likely to intensify in the coming weeks in eastern Ukraine where Russia is refocusing its efforts
• Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who held talks with President Vladimir Putin at his residence outside Moscow, said afterwards that he was "rather pessimistic" about prospects for peace
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told US President Joe Biden that he has repeatedly appealed to Putin and Zelensky to hold direct talks. India has so far refused to condemn the invasion

This is Aparna Alluri in Delhi and and Zubaidah Abdul Jalil in Singapore signing off and handing over to our colleagues, Jeremy Gahagan, James Fitzgerald and Rob Corp in London

The UK has warned that fighting is likely to intensify in eastern Ukraine over the next two or three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts there.

In the latest of its morning updates, external, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has tweeted about Russian attacks near Donetsk and Luhansk, with further fighting around the southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv.

According to the intelligence, the Russians are also pushing towards Kramatorsk. Dozens of people were killed here last week when a rocket hit a railway station.

The MoD adds that Russian forces are continuing to travel via Belarus in order to redeploy in eastern Ukraine.

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Image source, PA Media

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said London "will hold Putin and his regime to account" if it's proven that Russian forces used chemical weapons to attack the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Truss' comments come after the Ukrainian armed forces' Azov regiment said soldiers were left feeling dizzy and had trouble breathing after a "poisonous substance of unknown origin" was dropped on them from a Russian drone.

Earlier, Mariupol's mayor reported more than 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege of his city and the number of deaths could pass 20,000.

The UK has expressed concern that Moscow could use white phosphorus munitions in its bombardment of the city.

Image source, Getty Images

An international delegation of faith leaders is visiting Ukraine on Tuesday to show solidarity with those affected by the invasion.

The group is expected to meet those who have fled eastern Ukraine for the western city of Chernivtsi.

The delegation will include monks, rabbis, Muslim clerics, Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Williams told BBC Radio Four in an interview last week that there was a "strong case" to expel the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches, for its failure to condemn the killing of innocent people.

Pope Francis has given the visit his blessing, saying this was not the time to keep silent, but to forcefully demand an end to what he called "these abominable actions".

Image source, Getty Images

Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, the UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Monday.

The UN has also verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, although they have warned the actual number is almost certainly much higher.

Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is something he had not seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.

"Of the 3.2 million children estimated to have remained in their homes, nearly half may be at risk of not having enough food," Fontaine told the UN security council.

He warned the situation was probably worse in cities like Mariupol and Kherson, where there was no water and sanitation services and the supply of food and medicine had been disrupted.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s UN ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures.

Fontaine said there was so far "no evidence" of such accusations, but that UNICEF would investigate the matter.

Here’s a quick recap of what’s been unfolding in the past 24 hours:

On the ground

• Ukraine has denied it is about to lose control of the besieged port city of Mariupol. A number of reports on Monday suggested the resistance was in its last hours following weeks of Russian bombardment
• President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian troops who have withdrawn from occupied territories to focus on conquering the east have left behind tens of thousands of explosive mines
• Officials in Kharkiv have deployed loudspeakers to warn residents away from mines that they say were scattered by air around the city
• A French team has arrived in Ukraine to help local investigators look into allegations of war crimes around the capital Kyiv

In diplomacy

• The UK's foreign secretary says the country is looking into unverified reports that the Russians deployed some sort of chemical agent against Ukrainians in Mariupol
• Austria's Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, has held talks with President Vladimir Putin at his residence outside Moscow. Nehammer said afterwards he was "rather pessimistic" about prospects for peace

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told US President Joe Biden that he has repeatedly appealed to Putin and Zelensky to hold direct talks. India has so far refused to condemn the invasion

This is Jude Sheerin in Washington DC and Max Matza in Seattle signing off and handing over to our colleagues, Aparna Alluri in New Delhi and Zubaidah Abdul Jalil in Singapore.

Read more here:

Ukraine round-up: Austria pessimistic after Putin talks

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The mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol has told the Associated Press news agency that at least 10,000 civilians have died in the southern port since the war began.

Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Monday that the corpses were “carpeted through the streets”. He was speaking from an undisclosed location in Ukraine, but outside the city.

He added that there were still 120,000 civilians in Mariupol. They urgently need of food, water and medicine, he added.

Boychenko also said he had received reports of Russians collecting bodies and storing them in fridges at a huge shopping centre.

“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: you open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” he said.

The BBC has not been able to verify the mayor's claims, which he told the Associated Press were based on multiple sources.

Image source, SASHA MAKOVIY

A mother who scrawled contact details on her two-year-old daughter's back while fleeing Ukraine has described to the BBC her desperation in that moment.

Sasha Makoviy said she wrote little Vira's name, age and some phone numbers on her, in case the family were separated or killed while fleeing Kyiv.

"In case of our death, she could be found and would know who she is," she explained.

"It was the first day of the war, and we were preparing everything to flee from Kyiv and I was just not sure if it was safe."

Packing their belongings under the sound of falling bombs and with little information available, she said she "wasn't sure if we would come outside our house and be attacked by rockets".

"It was my biggest fear that Vira gets lost or that we become dead and she never finds out who she is, or what family she is from," Makoviy said.

Read more:

Desperate mother writes details on toddler's back

Geeta Pandey
BBC News, Delhi

Image source, ANUBHAV BHASIN

Last month, as bombs rained down on Ukraine's capital Kyiv, Anna Horodetska locked up her rented apartment and fled to India, carrying just a couple of T-shirts and a coffee machine - a wedding present from her grandmother.

When the 30-year-old, who worked in an IT company, arrived at the Delhi airport on 17 March, she was welcomed by Anubhav Bhasin, the 33-year-old lawyer she'd been dating for just over a year.

As drummers beat out celebratory tunes, Anubhav went down on one knee and proposed to her and placed a ring on her finger when she said yes.

The couple met in August 2019 by chance, in a bar while she was on a solo trip to India. They exchanged numbers, followed each other on Instagram, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Their relationship took shape over different continents separated by geography, meeting plans disrupted by the pandemic, quarantine rules and flight restrictions, and finally the Russian invasion of Anna's homeland.

Read more:

The Ukrainian bride who fled to India from Kyiv with a coffee machine

Image source, Reuters

There have been "reports that Russian forces may have used chemical agents in an attack on the people of Mariupol", UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has tweeted.

"We are working urgently with partners to verify details. Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict and we will hold [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his regime to account," Truss said.

This comes shortly after fighters from Ukraine's Azov regiment defending Mariupol said on Monday that Russian troops "used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian forces and civilians" in the besieged southern port city.

It provided no evidence to back up its claim.

Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote on his Telegram channel that reports about a chemical attack had not been confirmed and that he expected to provide clarifications later.

The Pentagon said the US was aware of "social media reports" about the claim of Russian forces using a potential chemical munition in Mariupol, but also made clear it was unconfirmed.

US defence department spokesman John Kirby said: "We cannot confirm at this time and will continue to monitor the situation closely."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touched on this issue in his video address late on Monday.

"One of the mouthpieces of the [Russian] occupiers stated that they could use chemical weapons against the defenders of Mariupol. We treat this with the utmost seriousness." Zelensky gave no further details.

Russia has not publicly commented on the issue.

Western and Ukrainian officials have been accusing Moscow of planning to use chemical weapons in Ukraine going back to early in the conflict, yet no such attack has been substantiated.

A former circus bear who was kept for years in a small concrete cage at a Ukrainian hotel complex has been rescued, a Dutch charity has announced.

Kiriusha arrived at a zoo in the Netherlands on Sunday and is now in quarantine.

The brown bear, who is thought to be about 24, had been on the Bears in Mind Foundation's radar for some time it seems, but rescue only became possible once the owner - who is away fighting - agreed to give her up.

Rescuing Kiriusha as soon as possible was a priority, the charity said in a statement, as food was becoming scarce.

But it meant travelling into Ukraine and undertaking a rescue mission which the foundation described as an "exciting venture". It is unclear exactly where the hotel was.

Kiriusha will soon join other rescued bears in the "bear forest" at Ouwehands Zoo - a stark difference from the small, concrete-bottomed cage that had been home for 18 years.

Eleven civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine overnight, said the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov.

One of the victims was a seven-year-old child, he said. More than 14 other people were hospitalised.

Writing on Telegram, Synyehubov also warned residents not to approach or touch any ammunition, but to alert rescuers if they see any.

He said the Kharkiv region was shelled 66 times with rocket launchers, artillery and tanks.

Image source, .

Emanuel Rosu, BBC Sport

Image source, Stefan Constantin

When the first Russian bombs exploded close to Ukraine's capital Kyiv and other cities across the country in the early hours of 24 February, football did not matter anymore. But now, almost two months after the war started, the game can help heal a bleeding nation.

Dynamo Kyiv, the country's most celebrated club, came up with a plan. They asked for President Volodymyr Zelensky's approval to tour Europe and send Ukraine's message through the whole continent.

Football is the channel they want to use to tell people a story about grief and hope, the gratitude they feel for the open doors they found abroad, and their fury against the horrors left behind by the invaders.

The team, camped in Bucharest, Romania, are training with their feet here, but their hearts are in Ukraine.

"Emotional and mental stability is the most important thing for these boys right now," says head coach Mircea Lucescu.

"These hours we spend together are really important to them. It's the only time of the day when they can focus on other things than the war at home.

Read more here

Russian forces have seized a cargo ship docked in the port of Mariupol along with those on board, Ukraine's human rights ombudswoman says.

Lyudmyla Denisova posted in her Telegram channel that 18 Ukrainians and one Egyptian were taken off the ship, named the Smarta, and all contact with them had been lost.

The captured individuals include the captain's wife who happened to be on board at the time.

The Liberian-flagged ship docked in Mariupol on 21 February, days before the Russian invasion, on its way to Turkey and had been unable to put to sea again, Denisova said.

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Image source, Getty Images

Officials in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv have warned residents to stay away from mines that they say are being dropped from the air on to the city.

Lieutenant Colonel Nikolay Ovcharuk, who leads the country's demining initiative, said the devices have "self-destructing timers" that allow them to go off hours after making impact on the ground.

Loudspeakers in the area are being used to warn people against entering cordoned-off areas where Ovcharuk's teams are working.

The scatterable explosives are considered anti-personnel mines that are likely to cause civilian injuries, and are therefore banned under some interpretations of the laws of war.

Kharkiv residents told Reuters that some of the mines had been dropped early on Monday morning.

"Tonight at 01:00 we heard some strange sounds, something whistled and then it all dropped," a local man named Sergey told Reuters.

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Russia is finding itself increasingly shunned by the international community, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky says in his nightly Facebook address, adding that the "invasion makes [Russia] more and more toxic every day".

He goes on to warn that "tens if not hundreds of thousands" of dangerous munitions have been left behind by Russia in their withdrawal.

"The occupiers left mines everywhere. In the houses they seized. Just on the streets, in the fields. They mined people's property, mined cars, doors," he says.

He warned of reports that Russia may be planning to deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine, adding that they are taking those concerns "as seriously as possible" and calling on Ukrainians to fortify their resolve.

"The key task both today and every day at this time is concrete defensive measures," he tells Ukrainian citizens.

"A concrete increase in our ability to repel any attacks by Russian troops. I am dealing with this issue almost around the clock."

He says that Ukraine's troops are "braver" than Russia's forces, and "are beating the occupiers with wisdom and well-thought-out tactics".

But he says Ukraine is still reliant on its international partners for weapons, and does not have the equipment it needs "in particular, to unblock Mariupol".

Image source, Handout

The Nato military alliance could soon expand, with both Finland and Sweden expected to apply for membership.

US officials expect both Nordic nations to go for membership as early as June.

If they joined it would take the Nato alliance to 32 members.

US defence officials have said Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has been a "massive strategic blunder" that's likely to spur Nato enlargement.

Find out more about Nato here.