What is the Wagner group and how important are they?published at 20:57 Greenwich Mean Time 24 February 2023

20:57 GMT 24 February 2023

Orla Guerin
Senior International Correspondent, in eastern Ukraine

Over the next hour we're going to return to your questions submitted to our team of correspondents. First up is a question to Orla Guerin.

What are the Wagner group and how big a role are they playing in fighting Russia’s war?

The Wagner group is a private army of Russian mercenaries. It was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and former convict.

The group was designated a transnational criminal organisation, external by the United States in January.

Prigozhin is wanted by the FBI on charges of interfering with the US Presidential election in 2016, which was won by Donald Trump. His ties with Vladimir Putin go back to the 1990s.

Wagner helped Russia capture Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Since the invasion last year, the group’s main focus has been the East. It has taken the lead in the battle for Bakhmut, and neighbouring Soledar.

After the capture of Soledar, Prigozhin sparred openly with Russia’s defence minister saying his men deserved the credit, not regular Russian troops.

Western estimates for the number of Wagner fighters in Ukraine have been as high as 50,000.

The US said recently that 9,000 Wagner fighters have been killed in action here, having been used by the group as “cannon fodder”.

Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya interrupted a minute's silence at the UN to mark a year since the war in Ukraine started.

After the interjection, the silence continued after a short delay.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

While I was in the BBC Radio Theatre, I interviewed some of the refugees in the audience.

Maria Vynogradova from Kyiv worked in TV and radio back home and she's hoping to continue in broadcasting in the UK. I asked her about how she feels about her country.

She said: "I am a really positive person and I am strong and feel things will be okay. I'm dreaming to get on TV or radio here, it would be a great step forward."

I asked her how it feels looking back one year since the start of the war.

Maria explained: "On British and European TV everyone is talking about an anniversary of war. But for Ukrainians I feel that we have the strength of the world and spirit right now, surrounding us. We feel so confident and every Ukrainian hopes they'll get this victory.

One year ago we were shocked and it was difficult but I feel like we will win.

This is not just an anniversary of war, it's anniversary of our strength."

Image source, EPA

Some fresh figures to bring you now from the Russian human rights group OVD-Info who say at least 54 people have been detained at anti-war rallies in various Russian cities.

Posting on Telegram, OVD-Info say people ended up in police departments for picketing, laying flowers, and even writing in the snow.

Most of the detainees, 18 people, were in St Petersburg.

"Also, 11 people were detained in Yekaterinburg, seven in Moscow, four each in Nizhny Novgorod and Barnaul.

"In total, OVD-Info recorded anti-war detentions in 14 cities," it wrote.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

The hairs on my neck stand up as I watch the audience stand and sing in unison.

Footage of the year's events from the war is displayed on the screen at the front of the theatre, along with the Ukrainian national anthem being played.

The audience stand together and I feel the emotion in the room as people sing together, remembering the past year in their country.

Nadine Yousif
Reporting from Toronto, Canada

Canada will join other allies in sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine soon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced.

Four of the cutting-edge main battle tanks - which are produced by Germany - will be delivered, alongside an armoured recovery vehicle and 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

The Leopard 2 is used by a number of European countries, and is considered to be easier to maintain and more fuel-efficient than most other Western tanks.

During the announcement, Trudeau referred to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine as a “grave miscalculation”.

“A year ago, Putin invaded a sovereign democratic country, he was driven by greed, by cruelty and he was under the illusion that he could take Ukraine in a matter of days,” Trudeau said. “365 days later, Ukraine is still standing strong.”

Since the beginning of the war, Canada has transported more than seven million pounds of aid and C$1bn ($734.9m, £615.3m) of military aid, including tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery.

The North American country is home to the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world outside of Russia.

Image source, .

Will the war still be happening in a year?published at 19:56 Greenwich Mean Time 24 February 2023

19:56 GMT 24 February 2023

John Simpson
World Affairs editor

As we look back on a year of war in Ukraine, we've had a question asking if the war will still be going on in 12 months time

Sadly, I think there’s a good chance it will.

On the Russian side, anything that looks like a defeat, especially if Russia has to withdraw from Crimea or eastern Ukraine, will be devastating to Vladimir Putin and could mean he’d be overthrown; so he’s got to keep fighting.

Ukraine’s government and people aren’t in any mood to stop either, and the weaponry and logistical support they’re getting from Nato convinces them they can win.

Even if Western countries, and particularly the US, get tired of helping Ukraine, the Ukrainian forces will be able to keep on for a long time.

Maybe, given that China is the only country with real influence over Russia, it can find some sort of peace agreement which will make Putin stop. But unless there’s a knock-out blow and one side or the other is defeated outright, it’s hard to see the war ending soon.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

Victoria Derbyshire goes on to ask the audience about justice for Ukrainians.

Yaroslava is a doctor who worked just outside Kyiv and is hoping to work as a doctor in London now after fleeing her country.

Victoria asked her about how important it is to see Russians held to account for potential war crimes.

Yaroslava said: "The evil should be recognised and it should be punished.

"All Ukrainians deserve justice for their sacrifices. It should be a fair tribunal, law and reparation. Russian federations should recognise what they have done and what is wrong and right."

Yaroslava went onto say that Ukrainians ideally would like to see justice to prevent further situations like this.

She finished with: "This war has not just destroyed the buildings where I grew up, it has destroyed the memories of my life and my identity."

Watch Ukraine: One Year On on the BBC iPlayer, or at the top of this page (UK only).

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Kyiv

Image source, Reuters

While a major escalation in hostilities to mark the anniversary has not been seen today, that does not mean there haven't been any attacks.

In the eastern region of Kherson, officials said there were 14 strikes reported overnight. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Russian strikes were also reported in the regions of Sumy and Donetsk.

In a post on Telegram, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said one person had been injured and buildings damaged today in Donetsk.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s air forces earlier said that Russia may be preparing a “surprise” and to stay alert in the coming days.

Francis Scarr, BBC Monitoring

A year since the invasion of Ukraine, coverage of the war on Russia's state-controlled TV channels has shifted as the Kremlin attempts to shape public opinion at home.

What was initially framed as a swift and surgical undertaking aimed at "liberating" a willing Ukrainian population from its "Nazi" leadership is now presented to Russians as a defensive struggle against a West which wants to destroy their country.

Two-thirds of Russians receive most of their information from TV, where the messaging is under tight Kremlin control.

Throughout the war, Russians have been told that their country is a victim and not the aggressor. As tanks rolled into Ukraine one year ago, TV host Anatoly Kuzichev said to viewers:" Were there any other options? Of course there weren't."

But as Moscow's forces suffered more setbacks, state TV has increasingly framed the hostilities as a full-scale war not against Ukraine, but against a more formidable adversary in the shape of Nato.

The likes of key Kremlin mouthpiece Vladimir Solovyov have repeatedly claimed that Western nations are bent on "wiping Russia off the face of the earth".

More recently, Western pledges to send modern battle tanks to help Ukraine have dominated TV, with presenters drawing factually incorrect parallels with Hitler's invasion of the USSR in 1941.

"It was in Stalingrad that we beat back the onslaught of the collective West against our country," news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov declared on his show earlier this month.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

As part of our 'Ukraine one year on' coverage we are interviewing refugees from the country.

Arkia fled her city of Kharkiv aged just 17 last year. She left her parents behind.

She says: "It didn't feel real, you don't know what is happening to your loved ones."

Arkia's parents are still in Kharkiv and they never left.

She says she feels guilt after leaving them behind and is now studying at the University of Warwick. She adds: "Every Ukrainian right now feels like they should be with their family".

The only thing that keeps her going, she says, is hope.

"You have to be strong and go on with your life because maybe in the future the things that you're doing right now will be helpful for your family and your country."

Barbara Plett Usher
North America correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

At the beginning of this anniversary week President Biden surprised the world by showing up in Kyiv, standing next to the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky as air raid sirens sounded.

It was the most visual demonstration of support Biden could have come up with.

And he and his administration have been relentlessly hammering home the message behind it: that the US and its allies united to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression and they need to keep that up. Because this is not only about the invasion of one country, it’s about a threat to the world order.

The US has underscored that by announcing yet more military aid, and a new round of sanctions against Russia and countries that are helping support its defense industry.

But Biden’s difficulty is that despite Western solidarity with Ukraine, other powers such as India, Turkey and especially China are still doing business with Russia, helping Moscow to stay afloat.

This week, we have been asking people across Ukraine to talk with us about the last photos on their phones before the invasion. And it has got some of our Ukrainian colleagues thinking about their own experiences.

Producer Hanna Chornous says all the pictures on her phone immediately before Russia’s invasion were behind-the-scenes photos of the team in Kyiv’s live broadcasts.

“Back then, we - correspondent James Waterhouse, cameraman Steve Adrain, and me – had been reporting for weeks about a possible invasion that so many foreign politicians and experts were warning about. Then it happened,” she says.

Like people across Ukraine, Hanna says she woke that morning to the sound of explosions. She then immediately got to work, reporting on the story.

“Being busy with work and having supportive colleagues around helped me to stay focused, when the world around me was falling apart,” she says.

A few days after the invasion Hanna moved into a hotel bunker along with other BBC colleagues, where they “worked, ate and slept, while hiding from bombs”. She stayed there for three months.

“This morning I walked into the same location in Kyiv, buzzing like last year, with familiar faces getting ready for morning lives.

“Now we are reporting on the one-year anniversary since the all-out Russian war on Ukraine. Sometimes it's still hard to believe what has happened over the last 12 months.”

Victoria Derbyshire - host of Newsnight and Ukrainecast - presents a special show at 18:45 GMT to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine.

Victoria will bring together special guests and experts from Ukraine and beyond.

This special programme will be streamed live in the UK on BBC iPlayer, broadcast on Newsnight, and also published in the Ukrainecast feed on BBC Sounds.

Or you can watch on the player at the top of this page. Just press the Play icon.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

I'm sat watching the BBC's radio theatre fill up with 100 Ukrainian refugees, invited here to mark the anniversary of the war.

Tonight's programme is a collaboration between Ukrainecast and Newsnight, discussing everything that's happened since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian guests have come from Harrogate, Rugby, Coventry and Banbury, to name a few.

I'll be reporting live from the theatre as the night goes on and speaking to refugees about their lives in the UK and how they feel on this first anniversary.

During his press conference President Zelensky said he spoke with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Now, we are hearing news from Russia that Vladmir Putin has also chatted with the Turkish president.

In a statement the Kremlin said the pair discussed the practical aspects of increased Russian energy supplies, according to Reuters.

The two presidents also talked about a 2022 deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea as well as the export of Russian fertilisers and agricultural products.

Why are Nato and EU countries afraid of escalating the conflict?published at 18:23 Greenwich Mean Time 24 February 2023

18:23 GMT 24 February 2023

Jeremy Bowen
International editor

Time for another one of your questions now and Vernon Smith from the Soloman Islands wants to know why EU and Nato countries are afraid of escalating the conflict? He says Vladimir Putin escalates it every day.

Nato and the EU are afraid of escalation because of what Russia might do. They’re right to take Putin’s nuclear sabre rattling seriously.

Early on, US President Joe Biden said he didn’t want Word War 3, and I’m certain Putin doesn’t either. But Putin has chosen to use nuclear rhetoric, and there’s always doubt about what he might do if he was facing a severe and humiliating defeat, for example Ukraine retaking Crimea (not a possibility at the moment).

What is actually working in Ukraine is the dynamic that stopped the Cold War escalating into nuclear war, and that is the idea of deterrence. Putin’s threats reinforce Russia’s ability to deter Nato, and Russia is deterred by American and Nato counter-threats (passed on in a meeting between US and Russian intelligence chiefs).

If using Nato force was risk-free, they might have done it.

Following the news earlier that Poland has delivered its first Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Sweden says it has plans to give "around" 10 of the same machines.

It'll also hand over anti-air systems to Ukraine, making Sweden the latest Western country to pledge heavier weapons as the war enters its second year.

Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson says the model they have is called a "Leopard 2A5". Since this is similar to the one used by Germany, they could therefore send the tanks as part of a German-coordinated group, he adds.

Ulf Kristersson, Sweden's PM, has also announced plans to deliver the IRIS-T and HAWK anti-air missile systems to Ukraine.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Kyiv

Image source, .

I’ve just been speaking on the phone with Yuriy Sak, adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister.

Asked whether he was surprised that there had not been a major escalation by Russia today, Sak said “yes and no”.

“We were anticipating that Russia would attempt to do a major escalation before or on the one-year anniversary of the large-scale invasion, but at the same time, we knew that during the last 12 months Ukrainian armed forces have degraded Russian military capabilities so badly that… we were wondering what they were going to do it with,” he said.

Sak added that Ukrainians should “under no circumstances underestimate” Russia.

“We must not be complacent,” he said. “For as long as Russian soldiers are on Ukrainian land, this war continues, and we have to be prepared for any turn of events.”

He said Ukraine was now focused on its own counter-offensive, which it plans to launch in the spring.

He gave no details, saying only: “You will see it when it happens.”

Sak said the next couple of months would “not be easy”, but that if Ukraine continued to receive support from other countries he was “confident that victory can happen in 2023”.

Sam Hancock
Live reporter

Image source, EPA

If you're just joining us, we've been listening in to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky give a special press conference on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion.

Here's a recap of what he's said:

Victory "will inevitably await us"... if allies "respect their promises and deadlines", the wartime leader told a packed room of the world's media.

Appealing to countries including China and India... he said all countries, even those who've been less forthright about their support for Ukraine, should be involved in the peace process.

A rare selfie was taken... after an Azerbaijani journalist asked Zelensky for a photograph as part of a question about Ukraine's relationship with Azerbaijan. Moments like this highlight his unconventional and distinctly modern leadership style.

Emotions ran high over Bucha... when Zelensky was asked whether he could pick his worst moment of the war so far. The small town had been under Russian control until Ukrainian troops fought back last April to reclaim it, later finding mass graves. "It was horrible," Zelensky said, looking visibly moved.

Suggestions of incoming fighter jets... were made by Zelensky, though he wouldn't say which countries were supposedly considering sending them - only that there are three and they're European.

Turning to his family... the Ukrainian president said his wife and children are the most important aspects to his life even though he doesn't get to see them very often.