Image source, Reuters

Russia will not participate in Thursday's special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Ukraine, its foreign ministry said today.

The Council announced on Monday that it would hold a special session at Kyiv's request to examine "the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression".

But Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that "the Russian delegation will not legitimise with its presence this new political show organised under the guise of an extraordinary session".

She said Russia's arguments and explanations on the "true objectives of this special military operation and the real situation on the ground have been completely ignored".

"It is evident that they will not be heard this time either" during the West's "new anti-Russian measure," she said.

Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

British and American intelligence say Russia was behind the hacking of a satellite communications provider an hour before Russia’s invasion began in February.

Major satellite communications provider Viasat, which provides high-speed satellite broadband to commercial and military customers, was hit by a destructive cyber-attack.

It was not just the Ukrainian military that was affected, but customers in about 20 countries in Europe, causing communications outages and even affecting wind farms relying on the systems.

Now, the US, UK and EU have formally said Russia was behind the attack. Moscow in the past has always denied such allegations.

Some analysts have expressed surprise there has not been more evidence of destructive cyber-attacks.

But one intelligence official says the war in Ukraine has actually seen the most sustained offensive of cyber-operations one country has launched against another - but that campaign was also met by one of the best collective defences they had seen.

You can read more on the attack here.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will travel to Sweden and Finland on Wednesday, as the two countries consider joining the Nato military alliance.

Sweden and Finland are expected to make a decision about whether to apply to join Nato this month.

"It is about not just Ukraine, but about the broader security of Europe," the prime minister's spokesman said.

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Image source, Reuters

Five of Kyiv's metro stations are set to be renamed as the Ukrainian capital looks to "de-Russify" its transport network.

Authorities say 170,000 people took part in an online poll to select new names for certain stations with Soviet connotations. City councillors will next look at formalising them.

The voters decided:

• Leo Tolstoy Square station should be renamed to honour Ukrainian writer Vasyl Stus
• Beresteiska station should be called Buchanskaya
• Heroes of the Dnieper should become Heroes of Ukraine
• Minsk station should be retitled Warsaw
• And Friendship of Peoples should in future be known as Botanical

Last month, crowds in Kyiv cheered as a statue representing friendship between Russia and Ukraine was dismantled - you can watch the video here.

Caroline Davies
Reporting from Odesa

The acrid smell of burnt plastic still hangs in the air outside one of the city’s shopping centres.

Hit overnight, the back of the building has crumpled with the impact, the inside incinerated by the fire that took hold after. This morning, firefighters were still putting out some lingering fires.

Even 300 metres from the strike, the force of the blast destroyed many of the windows in a newly built block of flats. Katerina and her two-year-old daughter Arina were asleep in the block when the explosion hit.

“We were about to go to bed when the air alert began,” she tells me. “I heard a very loud explosion. I grabbed two pillows and covered my daughter’s ears with them. I didn’t want her to hear the sound of the explosion and be frightened by it. The whole house was shaking.”

She asks her daughter: “What do we do when we hear an air raid siren?”

“Run,” Arina says. “We run away.”

Matvey is eight years old. He told us he was also woken by the explosion and began to cry. He hunted for his dog Max because he was worried he too would be scared.

Today his flat has no electricity - a powerline was taken down by the missile - so he has been unable to do his school work from home. He plays nervously with two pieces of blackened metal he found outside, parts of the missile.

Was he scared I ask? Yes. Very, he replies.

Image source, EPA

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said Ukraine should become a full member of the European Union at some point, but also says there could be no shortcut to membership.

Baerbock is currently visiting Ukraine and has announced the reopening of the German embassy in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

She also says Germany will reduce imports of Russian oil to zero, which "will stay that way forever".

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Video from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows firefighters dousing fires at a shopping centre in eastern Ukraine, following a missile strike on Monday night.

The city’s authorities confirmed that throughout 9 May, Odesa had been attacked with seven missiles using aircraft.

Hugo Bachega
Reporting from Dnipro

Image source, Reuters

The final battle for Mariupol is being fought in the sprawling Azovstal steelworks, where hundreds of Ukrainian fighters are holed up in underground tunnels and bunkers, surrounded by Russian troops.

Ukrainian officials say the Soviet-era site has been under heavy Russian attacks in recent days, after civilians were evacuated, and that attempts by the invading forces to storm the site have failed, claims that cannot be independently verified.

At the weekend, authorities said all elderly people, women and children had been rescued in missions co-ordinated by the UN and the Red Cross. The UN, however, has not confirmed that. News that at least 100 civilians remain at the site, shared by a local official, will renew concerns about what is happening there.

Meanwhile, families of the fighters are desperate for a plan to guarantee their evacuation too. That, however, seems highly unlikely.

In an extraordinary news conference broadcast live from a bunker on Sunday, two fighters rejected the idea they might surrender: “We don’t have high chances of survival if we’re captured,” one of them said. “We are basically dead men. Most of us know this.”

Mariupol is strategically significant for Russia, as it would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the eastern areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were controlled by Russian-backed separatists before this invasion started, and the Crimea peninsula, invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014.

Sophie Williams
Reporting from Lviv

The mayor of the southern city of Kherson says there is a major issue with the export of goods from the region.

Kherson, an important port on the Black Sea, has been occupied by Russian forces for more than 60 days.

“Kherson is an agricultural region and there are product groups which have not been exported to foreign countries,” Mayor Ihor Kolyhayev told me.

Products such as wheat grain, barley, rye, sunflower oil and soy have been produced, but not delivered or exported and are now stuck at sea ports in the Kherson region.

“Ships loaded with containers, most of them 100% loaded, cannot leave the seaports now and the products on these ships have become spoiled,” he said.

Kolyhayev also said there was an issue with imports to Ukraine such as cement, petroleum and fertilisers.

“This is why you can notice the rising prices for many products and fuel,” he said.

Image source, Reuters

A huge cyber-attack against a satellite internet network at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which took thousands of modems offline, was caused by Russia, the EU has said.

The attack against Viasat's KA-SAT network in late February took place just as Russian forces pushed into Ukraine, Reuters news agency reports.

"This cyber-attack had a significant impact causing indiscriminate communication outages and disruptions across several public authorities, businesses and users in Ukraine, as well as affecting several EU member states," the Council of the EU said in a statement.

"This unacceptable cyber-attack is yet another example of Russia's continued pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyber-space, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine," it added.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also criticised Russia for the incident, saying: "This is clear and shocking evidence of a deliberate and malicious attack by Russia against Ukraine which had significant consequences on ordinary people and businesses in Ukraine and across Europe."

Ukraine's cyber-security authority has previously said it's fighting a war in the digital realm as well as on-the ground, with constant cyber-attacks against its networks.

Image source, Reuters

The United Nations says more than eight million civilians have been internally displaced within Ukraine since Russia began its invasion on 24 February, having fled their homes but stayed within the war-torn country.

The UN's figure is based on research carried out by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), external between 17 April and 3 May.

The IOM's survey highlights financial support as the overwhelming need among the internally displaced people, as well as the need for shelter.

It says nearly half of those people, or 44%, were considering further relocation because of the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the country.

''The needs of those internally displaced and all affected by the war in Ukraine are growing by the hour," says IOM Director General António Vitorino.

Image source, Reuters

Around 26,000 Russian troops have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has said in its latest update.

Over the past day, Russia suffered the greatest losses in the Avdiivka direction, north of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

It claims Russia has also lost approximately:

• 1,170 tanks
• 2,808 armoured combat vehicles
• 519 artillery systems
• 185 multiple launch rocket systems
• 87 anti-aircraft warfare systems
• 199 aircraft
• 158 helicopters
• 1,980 vehicles and fuel tankers
• 12 boats/cutters
• 380 drones
• 41 units of special equipment and 94 cruise missiles

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

Sarah Rainsford
Reporting from Kyiv

Image source, Getty Images

Beautiful Odesa by the sea was once a jewel of the Russian empire. Now it’s another target in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian land grab.

Capturing the city looks like part of a plan for troops to advance west along the coast from Mykolaiv and eventually seize territory all the way to Transnistria, a slither of Moldova that’s been controlled by Russia since a war in the 1990s.

Image source, EPA

Plans are one thing: for now, Ukraine’s military is holding the Russians back and the fiercest fighting is further east. But Odesa would be a grand prize for Russia, cutting Ukraine’s access to the sea and dealing a destructive blow to its exports and the economy.

The city is largely Russian-speaking and there were initial doubts over its allegiance, if Russia attacked.

More than two months of war - and multiple long-range missile strikes - appear to have settled that. Now one of the main fears is that the city ends up under siege, another Mariupol.

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Jack Burgess
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has substantially affected prices of food, including vegetable oils, wheat and maize.

Before the war, Ukraine and Russia accounted for 28.9% of global wheat exports, according to JP Morgan, and 60% of global sunflower supplies - a key ingredient in many processed foods - S&P Global says.

Russia's blockade along the Black Sea coast has meant millions of tons of grain cannot leave Ukraine.

How will people be affected?

The World Bank has predicted a "huge" 37% jump in food prices as a result, with its president David Malpass telling the BBC record rises would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition.

This would hit the poor hardest, who will "eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling".

What's the reaction around the world?

A deep economic crisis in Sri Lanka, with many people unable to afford food, has led to violent protests.

Image source, AFP

Soaring food and fuel prices are causing an "unprecedented" crisis in Africa, the UN warns.

In the Middle East, the World Bank has granted Lebanon a $150 million food security loan to stabilise bread prices.

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Image source, Reuters

Human rights violations in Ukraine "that may amount to war crimes" have been reported, the UN says - including killings, sexual violence and disappearances.

The head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner says it's received reports of rape, forced nudity and threats of sexual violence after visiting 14 towns in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions.

"Women and girls are the most frequently cited victims," she says.

Since the invasion in February, the UN says it has documented 204 cases of enforced disappearance.

As well as highlighting acts carried out by Russian forces, the UN briefing, external adds: "We have received credible information of torture, ill-treatment and incommunicado detention by Ukrainian armed forces of prisoners of war belonging to the Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups."

Russia and Ukraine "must promptly and effectively investigate" these allegations and "instruct their forces" to stop further violations, Bogner says.

The UN says it has also recorded hundreds of educational and medical facilities and about 50 places of worship being damaged or destroyed across Ukraine.

At a press briefing in Geneva, Bogner says the number of civilians killed is "thousands higher" than the figure initially given of 3,381 and mortality rates have worsened as people cannot access medical help.

The UN monitoring mission in Ukraine has been documenting violations of humanitarian law and human rights law since the invasion began on 24 February.

We've been reporting on how the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, had to take cover in a bomb shelter during his visit to Odesa because of an incoming Russian missile attack.

This is not the first time a city in Ukraine being visited by a Western diplomat has been the target of a Russian strike.

Image source, EPA

When the UN Secretary General António Guterres visited the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in April for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, two blasts hit the city.

In March, three European leaders travelled by rail from Poland to Kyiv to show support as the city came under further Russian attack.

While the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic were visiting, loud explosions could be heard from fighting on the western edge of the capital city.

The UK’s ambassador to Ukraine recently returned to Kyiv and said on 1 May that she felt “comfortable” working there, although she has had extra security protection.

However, in days before Melinda Simmons’ return, a Russian statement said forces were primed to carry out strikes against “decision-making centres in Kyiv”.

It added that the presence of foreign advisers at those sites would "not necessarily be a problem to Russia deciding to take retaliatory action”.

Ukraine officials say more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops, many of them injured, are still stuck in the sprawling Azovstal steelworks in the southern port city of Mariupol.

The steel plant is under heavy Russian fire following civilian evacuations last week, and at least 100 civilians are still thought to be trapped there.

"Hundreds are injured. There are people with serious injuries who require urgent evacuation," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told the AFP news agency.

"The situation is deteriorating every day."

The BBC has been unable to independently verify these claims.

Thousands more civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the war began than was previously estimated, the head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in the country has said.

Matilda Bogner said the number of people killed is much higher than the figure initially given of 3,381.

"We have been working on estimates, but all I can say for now is that it is thousands higher than the numbers we have currently given to you," she said at a press briefing in Geneva.

"The big black hole is really Mariupol where it has been difficult for us to fully access and to get fully corroborated information."

Image source, Reuters

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced trip, the highest-ranking German government official to visit the country since Russia's invasion began on 24 February.

Baerbock - who was meeting local residents in Bucha, where Russia's army has been accused of carrying out war crimes - is the latest in a string of foreign diplomats and leaders to visit the town near Kyiv.

Moscow has denied any crimes were committed in Bucha, despite hundreds of Ukrainians having been killed while the town was under Russian control for a month and a mass grave was discovered at the church after the town's liberation.

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting, the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol is once again under heavy fire following civilian evacuations last week.

Fighters from the Azov battalion remain trapped inside as they continue to defend the devastated city's last military hold.

The Mariupol detachment of the battalion said on Telegram that more than 34 Russian flights, of which eight were strategic bombers, had made it to Azovstal in the last 24 hours.

Russian military efforts, they said, have continued to "carry out daily assaults" on the plant.

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