Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent in the Donbas

The BBC was given an exclusive interview with a Ukrainian air defence officer about the battle for control of Ukraine's skies.

Russia may have received a bloody nose in its aborted attempts to take Kyiv, but with the Eastern region of the Donbas now firmly in Moscow's sights, the men and women of Dnipro's Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade will continue to play a key role in the next phase of the war.

Defending Ukraine's skies from Russian attacks is already proving a challenge. As one Ukrainian air defence officer told the BBC, it is like trying to use a giant fly swatter which had large holes in it.

"We can't cover the whole airspace," Capt Kravchuk says simply.

The fact he is even sitting here speaking to us is somewhat remarkable - especially given the fact that "many air defence facilities were destroyed fully or partially" in the first days of the war.

It's a rare public admission by Ukrainian forces that they suffered significant losses in the early stages of the war.

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Nine humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians have been agreed on in east and south Ukraine today, according to Ukraine's deputy prime minister.

But while humanitarian corridors are often agreed on in principle, it is far more difficult to implement them in practise, according to a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is helping to assist the implementation of these corridors.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today Programme, Lucile Marbeau said that implementing the corridors on the ground is challenging: the "frontline is always volatile, truces are fragile, and you also need the whole chain of command of course to be aware of this truce, what is the precise route, what is the time frame, and this is what makes it so hard actually to implement".

However, she said that they had been successful in some regions, with 2,500 people evacuated from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine yesterday.

In other areas like Mariupol, however, she said evacuating corridors had proven harder to implement, with people resorting to walking out of the besieged city, "exposing themselves to huge danger".

She added that humanitarian corridors are also vital for bringing in humanitarian aid to civilians who aren't able to leave.

Image source, .

The Russian defence ministry says it has carried out missile strikes targeting Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, warning that attacks like this will intensify in retaliation for what it called Ukrainian "terror attacks" or "acts of sabotage" in Russia.

Russia says its sea-based cruise missiles struck a factory in the city overnight, which produces air-defence systems and anti-ship missiles.

As a result, the plant's "workshops for the production and repair of long-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as anti-ship missiles, were destroyed", the ministry added in a statement published on its Telegram channel.

On Thursday, Russia accused Ukraine of sending helicopters across the border to attack several Russian towns.

The BBC is unable to verify these claims from Moscow.

City officials in Mariupol say Russian occupiers have begun exhuming bodies buried in the yards of residential blocks.

Mariupol City Council said on Telegram, external that the occupiers are not allowing residents to bury people allegedly killed by the occupiers.

Each yard now has a supervisor to enforce this rule.

There are 13 mobile crematoria in Mariupol, according to Ukraine, and the city authorities suspect the Russians are trying to cover up war crimes.

The BBC is unable to verify the claims, but what we do know is that seven weeks of relentless Russian shelling, hunger and freezing temperatures have left thousands of Mariupol residents dead.

Image source, .

Ukrainian forces will face a huge challenge in the east of the country, where Russian troops are massing for a new attack, according to a former CIA director.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, David Petraeus said this is the first time during the war that "you'll see the Russians mass all their efforts in one area instead of all around the country".

He added that the situation in the east would depend on a number of factors: "So, if the weather is favourable for them, if the field's dry out and they can get track vehicles on those fields they can line up a number of vehicles hub to hub".

Another factor would be how quickly additional security assistance can reach Ukraine, he said.

He added that it appears Russian President Vladimir Putin is "not interested" in engaging in negotiations right now, and wants a "tangible success to celebrate on 9 May when the annual World War Two Victory Day parade is held in Moscow."

Image source, .

Image source, EPA

The governor of Ukraine's Luhansk region in the east of the country has urged residents in the area to evacuate.

Writing in his Telegram channel, external, Serhiy Gaidai appealed for people to evacuate and "choose life" after he said one person was killed and five were wounded during Russian shelling in the town of Kreminna.

He added that 32,000 residents have been evacuated on trains and buses, and urged others to do the same.

"Don't hesitate and leave while that possibility remains," he said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenksy praised Ukrainians for surviving 50 days of war when the Russians had given them five.

“But they didn’t know how brave Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom and the possibility to live the way we want,” Zelensky said in his address late Thursday.

The Ukraine president also hailed the citizens fighting for the country. “50 days of our defence is an achievement. Achievement of millions of Ukrainians,” he said.

In his only reference to the sinking of the Russian warship Moskva, Zelensky spoke of “those who showed that Russian warships can sail away, even if it’s to the bottom” of the sea. The president was listing the ways in which Ukrainians had fought off the Russian troops.

Russia state media claimed that the ship sunk after a fire.

Russian and Ukrainian captive soldiers have been exchanged in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, according to Ukraine's armed forces in the south.

Writing on social media, it said four Russian prisoners had been exchanged for five Ukrainian servicemen in the Posad-Pokrovske village after intense negotiations.

Russia claimed control of Kherson early on in the war, but Ukraine has won back some of its territory, according to reports issued by the Pentagon some weeks ago.

Image source, .

If you're just joining us, here are the latest developments:

• Ukraine armed forces say they have repulsed Russian attempts to seize Popasna and Rubizhne in the east where invading troops have shifted focus in the last few days.
• In his address late on Thursday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed Ukrainians for having survived 50 days under Russian attack and fighting back against invading troops.
• In an interview to the BBC, Zelensky singled out Germany and Hungary, accusing them of blocking efforts to embargo energy sales, from which Russia stands to make up to £250bn ($326bn) this year.
• The White House said US President Biden will not be visiting Ukraine. The president has said he is considering sending a senior official to the capital, Kyiv.
• News of the sinking of Russia's warship Moskva - which Ukraine says was hit by its missiles - has inspired Kyiv residents to snap up a commemorative postage stamp.
• CIA director William Burns has warned that the potential Russian use of low-yield nuclear weapons to offset setbacks in Ukraine cannot be “taken lightly”, although there is little practical evidence to reinforce such a concern.
• Ukraine's neighbour Moldova, a former Soviet republic, has banned Russian war symbols, including the letters Z and V and the St George ribbon.

This is Vikas Pandey and Meryl Sebastian in Delhi signing off and handing over to our colleagues Jeremy Gahagan and Alys Davies in London.

Toby Luckhurst and Mariana Maglych in Lviv

Iryna and Roma met on a train to Lviv. He’s a 19-year-old from the Black Sea city of Mykolayiv, while she is a grandmother from Severodonetsk in the eastern region of Luhansk.

With them is Molly, a tiny grey kitten that Roma bought after the invasion. When the war began his girlfriend left him and left Ukraine so he says he picked up Molly so he "wouldn’t be lonely”.

Iryna initially went to the Polish border to escape the fighting. But at the front of the queue at the frontier, she turned back, unable to leave her home country. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it,” she tells us.

The pair have nothing in common. They are just two of some 10 million Ukrainians displaced by war.

But they’re determined to stick together, waiting for a bus from a refugee centre in Lviv to the countryside. Iryna is offered the last seat on a coach but she refuses - it’s her and Roma together, or not at all.

“I hid underground for a month [when the war started],” she said. “I don’t mind waiting."

Clive Myrie
BBC News, Kyiv

The BBC's Clive Myrie writes on interviewing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in his office.

As we greet, an aide handed him a phone. On it was a text message, from France. "Is it Emmanuel?" he asked the aide? "Yes," came the reply.

"We have a connection and he calls me all the time," the president tells me. "Do you mind if I give him a quick call?"

"Absolutely," I say, surprised that he asked me whether or not he should call the president of France back straightaway or try him later.

But that's part of the measure of Zelensky, an affability and charm that comes so naturally.

However, there were times over the next hour when I could tell he was angry and upset when he recalled visiting the town of Bucha, about 25km (16 miles) north-west of central Kyiv, that Russian forces had occupied for several weeks. After they pulled out, a mass grave was discovered near a church and there were bodies lying in the street.

I asked him if he believed Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. His response was that anyone connected with the Russian military, and their civilian masters, were war criminals.

Read more from behind the scenes here.

The war in Ukraine completed 50 days on Friday. Here are some photos from the last 24 hours in the country.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Russia’s attempts to seize Popasna and Rubizhne in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Tavriya have been “unsuccessful", said the latest statement from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Ukraine has repelled eight Russian attacks in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the last 24 hours, it said, adding that they destroyed four Russian tanks, six armoured transport vehicles, four infantry fighting machines and an artillery system.

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

In the last few days, Russia has pulled troops away from the capital of Kyiv and shifted its focus to eastern Ukraine. This push could lead to a protracted conflict in the area.

If Russia were to conquer the east, it would give President Vladimir Putin some sort of achievement from the war, the BBC's Paul Kirby reported earlier this week.

But President Zelensky has vowed to "fight for every metre of our land".

Image source, Reuters

Two asylum seekers to the US - one Ukrainian and one Russian - have wed in a small ceremony in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

Ukrainian Daria Sakhniuk and Russian Semen Bobrovski married at the Mexican Civil Registry offices on Wednesday.

Both had been living in Ukraine before the war, they told TV network Telemundo, and had been planning to marry in Kyiv.

"I'm very happy that I met some very nice people who could help us come together in this matrimony here in Mexico, in Tijuana," Sakhniuk told the network.

After the ceremony, the couple celebrated Sakhniuk's 27th birthday with a traditional Mexican"taquiza" party and a mariachi band.

According to a new release from the Tijuana city council, they had arrived in Mexico two weeks ago. Bobrovski was unable to seek asylum in the US, due to immigration measures that are only available to Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war.

Now that Bobrovski has married a Ukrainian, the couple hope to be allowed into the US and re-settle in New York.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Food shortages in Ukraine are spreading because of Russian warships blocking Ukrainian ports and trade in the Black Sea, Ukrainian Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka has said.

Writing on social media, Kachka referred to a statement from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that one fifth of the world's population will experience hunger because of the war in Ukraine.

He said Russian ships shooting at commercial vessels are preventing Ukraine from exporting corn, wheat and vegetable oil.

"Were it not for Russia, Africa and the Middle East would not have to think about where to find more money to buy wheat," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

The head of Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region says that at least 503 civilians have died there since the start of Russia's invasion on 24 February.

Posting on Telegram, Oleg Synegubov said that 24 children were among the dead.

"This is an innocent civilian population, we will not forgive them for any life," he wrote.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the death toll.

Kharkiv - 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border - had a population of 1.5 million before the war began.

Unlike other parts of Ukraine, which have seen a break in fighting as Russia turns east, Kharkiv has seen no reprieve.

If you're just joining us or need a quick catch up, here are the latest developments:

• Russia's flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva, has sunk in rough seas after a fire aboard the ship forced the crew to evacuate. Ukraine says it carried out a strike on the vessel, while Russia claims ammunition on board blew up
• The sinking is seen as a massive blow to Russia's navy
• Fighting continues in the east of Ukraine, on the 50th day of the war
• Explosions have also been reported in Kyiv, as well as the city of Kherson
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would shift the direction of its exports of oil and gas to Asia. He warned that European countries were destabilising the market by moving away from Russian gas and oil
• Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused European countries that continue to buy Russian oil of “earning their money in other people’s blood". In an interview with the BBC, he singled out Germany and Hungary.
• Russian officials continue to claim Ukraine is attacking border areas in Russia
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called for more weapons to be delivered to his country. He said they are needed to break the siege of Mariupol.
• The war in Ukraine is "severely" impacting the eurozone economy and has caused surging energy costs, supply chain disruptions and weaker consumer confidence, European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde has said

This is Jude Sheerin in Washington DC and Max Matza in Seattle signing off and handing over to our colleagues Vikas Pandey and Meryl Sebastian in Delhi.

The presenter of the BBC podcast Ukrainecast, Vitaly Shevchenko, has shared an update on his mother and his disabled aunt, who have finally crossed the border into Poland, one month after leaving their hometown of Zaporizhzhia in south-eastern Ukraine.

A listener from the podcast got in touch with Vitaly after hearing his story and offered to drive the pair to the UK.

Listen to his story here.

Joel Gunter
in Bucha, Ukraine

After the discovery of the atrocities in Bucha came the collection of the dead.

From an abandoned school in the suburb of Kyiv, Vitaliy Lobas, a local police chief, is coordinating a massive operation to find, document, and give proper burials to the hundreds of bodies the Russians left in their wake.

They occupied Bucha for a month as they attempted to assault Kyiv. According to the relatives of loved ones who spoke to the BBC, the Russian soldiers blasted their way into apartment buildings, shot people's dogs, and interrogated and beat residents.

Then they killed some of them in cold blood.

Vitaliy Brezhnev, a 30-year-old cook, was shot in his bedroom and buried in a shallow grave behind his building, where he was found by his father and brother.

Like other relatives, amid the sheer number of dead, they were forced to dig up and transport their loved one themselves.

Read the full story here:

Collecting the dead in Bucha

Image source, Reuters

Moldovan MPs have passed a ban on Russian war symbols, including the letters Z and V and the St George ribbon.

These are seen as pro-war symbols of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Fifty-three Moldovan MPs from the pro-European majority passed the bill, which introduces fines for making, distributing, wearing and displaying such symbols.

The pro-Russian opposition - which appealed against the bill earlier this month - attempted to disrupt the vote.

Members of the Party of Socialists, MPs Adrian Lebedinschi and Grigore Novac, previously claimed the ban "violates the freedom of expression" and "splits" society.