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Against War and Death". 14:00. Sunday. Main squares of cities.

Youtube Access Changes:

YouTube has announced that it is immediately blocking access to channels associated with Russian state media.

The video streaming giant referenced its policy blocking content that denies or trivialises well-documented events.

It said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine falls under that policy and that it will block access to channels including RT and Sputnik.

"Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events, and we remove content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy," spokesman Farshad Shadloo said.

"In line with that, effective immediately, we are also blocking YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media, globally."

Ukraine war: Fact-checking Russia's biological weapons claims
By Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Jake Horton
BBC Reality Check and BBC Monitoring
Published2 hours ago

Russian state TV - IMAGE SOURCE,CHANNEL ONE
Image caption,
Russian state TV has been showing sites which officials say are being used to develop bioweapons
Russia claims that biological weapons are being developed in laboratories in Ukraine with support from the United States.

It says evidence is now being destroyed to conceal the country's weapons programme, but the US says this is "total nonsense" and that Russia is inventing false narratives to justify its actions in Ukraine.

We've looked into some of the claims and assess whether there's any evidence to support them.

No evidence: US funds biological weapons research in Ukraine
Russia has accused the US and Ukraine of working with "pathogens of dangerous infections" in 30 laboratories across the country. Pathogens are microorganisms that can cause disease.

Ukraine has dozens of public health laboratories that work to research and mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases.

Some of these labs receive financial and other support from the US, the European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) - as is the case in many other countries.

Despite Russian claims that these are "secret" labs, details of US involvement can be found on the US embassy's website.

Lab in Ukraine - IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
The US says it funds work in Ukrainian labs to tackle dangerous diseases
Additionally, the US set up its "Biological Threat Reduction Program" in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union to reduce the risk from biological weapons that had been left behind in countries including Ukraine.

Under this programme certain labs receive funding from the US for modernisation and equipment, but are managed locally, not by the US.

The US Department of Defense has been working in partnership with Ukraine's Ministry of Health since 2005 to improve the country's public health laboratories.

The US provides technical support and, according to the US Embassy in Ukraine, "works with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (intentional, accidental or natural) of the world's most dangerous infectious diseases".

There is no evidence that they work to produce biological weapons. In January, the US said its programme does the opposite and in fact aims to "reduce the threat of biological weapons proliferation".

There have been similar unsubstantiated claims by Russia in the past about US-backed biolabs operating in its neighbouring countries.


Media caption,
The BBC's Steve Rosenberg investigates Russian disinformation and the Georgian 'lab of death'
In 2018, there were reports in Russian state media that untested drugs were given to citizens at a lab funded by the US in neighbouring Georgia.
The BBC visited the site and spoke to individuals involved in the research and found no evidence to support the claims.

No evidence: Ukraine destroyed pathogens to hide illegal research
Russian officials have also claimed Ukraine has tried to conceal evidence of prohibited activities.

Gen Igor Kirillov said documents uncovered by the Russian military in Ukraine on 24 February - the day the Russian invasion started - "show that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine has set the task of completely destroying bio-agents in laboratories".

"The Pentagon knows that if these documents fall into the hands of Russian experts, then it's highly likely that Ukraine and the United States will be found to have violated the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons," he said.

Document released by Russia - IMAGE SOURCE,ROSSIYA 1 TV
Image caption,
One of the documents Russian officials say they recovered from Ukraine
BBC News has been unable to independently verify the documents cited by General Kirillov.

The WHO has told BBC News that it had advised Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens stored at the country's public health labs to prevent "any potential spills" that would spread disease among the population.

The agency said it had collaborated with Ukrainian public health labs for several years to enhance biosafety and biosecurity and help prevent "accidental or deliberate release of pathogens".

The WHO did not say when the recommendation had been made nor whether it was followed. It also did not provide details of the kind of pathogens stored at Ukrainian labs. However, the US said Ukraine's health ministry had ordered the "safe and secure disposal of samples" after Russia's invasion to limit the risk in the event of a Russian military attack.

"There are no indications that Ukrainian labs have been involved in any nefarious activity, or any research or development in contravention of the Biological Weapons Convention," says Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King's College London.

She adds that pathogens stored at biological labs are simply bacteria and viruses, and "not blueprints or components of biological weapons".

"The reason they are kept in secure facilities is for bio-safety, so people don't make themselves sick by getting access to them."

False: A high number of pathogens indicates weapons research
Gen Kirillov also claimed that the highly militarised nature of the work at Ukrainian bio-labs is confirmed by "excess number of bio-pathogens" stored there.

But Dr Lentzos says this argument does not follow any logical science. "The numbers don't really matter, you can easily grow pathogens in a lab" starting from a small sample.

"These labs publish in openly available literature. They collaborate on many public health projects with global partners," says Brett Edwards, a senior lecturer in security and public policy at the University of Bath.

"Devoting considerable sums of money and significant resources to conducting bioweapons research makes no strategic sense for Ukraine given the difficulty in using them in a conflict," argues Dan Kaszeta, a former US serviceman and expert on defence against biological weapons.

"Conventional warfare weapons are much easier and more effective to use for countries like Ukraine," he said.

Where else have these claims been repeated?
Moscow's claims about the Ukrainian labs were echoed by China this week, with foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian accusing the US of using the facilities to "conduct bio-military plans".
Similar accusations have also been made by Iranian and Syrian officials.

Although the allegations have been echoed elsewhere, "most of the Russian messaging is meant to target their own population", according to Milton Leitenberg, a senior research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM).

He said the claims were meant to "muddy up the minds of Russian citizens" who did not know they were false and had no access to alternative information.

Ukraine accuses Russia of abducting Melitopol's mayor

from the bbc

Ukraine's foreign ministry has accused Russian soldiers of abducting the mayor of the south-eastern city of Melitopol.

Officials said that Russian troops kidnapped Mayor Ivan Fedorov on Friday afternoon after falsely accusing him of terrorism.

The BBC has not independently confirmed the allegations and Russian officials are yet to comment.

"The abduction of the mayor of Melitopol is classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocol, which prohibit the taking of civilian hostages during the war," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Melitopol fell to Russian troops almost two weeks ago, and Fedorov told the BBC on Wednesday that residents are "not co-operating with the Russians in any way".

Video said to show mayor's abduction is CCTV from Melitopol square
More now on reports that Russian troops have abducted the mayor of the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Melitopol.

A video widely shared on social media, including by the Belarusian opposition outlet, NEXTA, has been claimed to show Ivan Federov being dragged from a building in the city.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1502326338518241295

From BBC checks, the footage appears to be a CCTV recording watching the fountain in the Square of Victory, beside Liberators Arch in the city centre of Melitopol. However, we cannot verify whether the individual shown is Federov. You can watch the footage below.

Earlier, Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said that Fedorov had been abducted from a "crisis centre" in the city with a plastic bag over his head.

Russia has not yet commented on the allegations, which the Ukrainian foreign ministry has described as a "war crime".

Russia blocking evacuations from Mariupol, Ukraine says

Iryna Vereshchuk speaking to reporters-Getty Images

Ukraine's deputy prime minister has accused Russian forces of violating a ceasefire and of targeting people being evacuated from cities under bombardment.

In a video address posted on Friday, Iryna Vereshchuk said shelling had prevented evacuations from Mariupol, where a maternity hospital was bombed this week, and the capital Kyiv.

But she said some planned evacuations had been successful, including 1,000 people who were escorted from the village of Vorzel in the Kyiv region.

Elsewhere, the mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said that Russia had blocked evacuations from Izyum, a town on the front lines of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

5:14
Foreign fighters may be recruited to Russian cause
Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

This war is going badly for both sides. Ukraine’s cities are being pummeled by Russian shellfire, while Moscow’s army is still making only slow progress, hampered by the strength of Ukrainian resistance and its own poor logistics and tactical decisions.

Russia has now lost a third Major-General - a sign, say defence analysts, of the risks they’re having to take to keep their troops moving forward.

President Putin has backed moves to recruit from the Middle East to fight alongside Russian-backed forces.

A senior US official has previously accused Moscow of trying to enlist fighters from Syria – a country whose leader relied on support from the Kremlin during its civil war.

There is also a real prospect of Chechen fighters being amongst the assaulting troops.

Russia fought two wars in Chechnya to prevent it breaking away, but today Chechen soldiers are loyal to Moscow and have a fearsome reputation.

Meanwhile, the giant armoured convoy that has sat for days north of Kyiv has now moved closer to the capital.

Russian forces are attempting to close in on the city in a pincer movement. Ukrainians say they are ready to defend it.

Reality Check
Posted at 5:225:22
What Chinese people are hearing about Ukraine

Chinese television reports about Ukraine do not describe it as a "war" or "invasion"
Posts expressing partisan views have been removed on a daily basis - both for and against Russian military action.
"No-one dares to stand with Ukraine right now," wrote one person on Weibo, China's Twitter equivalent. "It's all one-sided support for Russia."
This was removed along with many others like it, according to Free Weibo, a platform which tracks Chinese censorship online.

Social-media platforms in China receive constant guidance from the government on how to deal with specific content and are under pressure to follow this.

Official and mainstream media carry regular reports on the situation in Ukraine but have stopped short of calling Russia's actions a "war" or "invasion".
Doublethink Lab, which has been tracking disinformation attempts in real time, has pointed out the Chinese media are "regularly quoting disinformation and conspiracy theories from Russian sources".
False claims, such as that the Ukrainians set fire to their own nuclear plant, are repeated by Chinese media with little attempt to challenge them.
There is also very little reporting on the resistance from the Ukraine side nor the wider Western response to Russia's invasion.

Zelensky tells Russian mothers: 'Do not send your children to war'

Video caption: Zelensky appeals to Russian mothersZelensky appeals to Russian mothers

Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky appealed to Russian mothers in his latest video address on Friday, urging them not to send them to the battlefield and to exercise vigilance on their whereabouts.

In an impassioned plea, he said "I want to say this once again to Russian mothers, especially mothers of conscripts. Do not send your children to war in a foreign country."

He called on them not to "believe the promises that they will be sent somewhere for exercises .. or non-combat conditions," and urged them to "act immediately" if there were any suspicions they were being sent to fight in Ukraine.

The address comes as Russia acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday the presence of conscripts in the ranks of its forces in Ukraine - many of whom were untrained for battle - and announced that a number of them had been taken prisoner.

Lights going out in bombarded Chernihiv
Chernihiv infographic - BBC

Under fire and out of supplies, the situation in the besieged northern city of Chernihiv is getting worse every day, BBC News Ukraine reports.

As it faces a constant barrage of shelling and aerial bombardment, supplies gas, heat and even water have been cut.

And the stocks people have amassed will soon run out. Electricity is available in only a few areas, and most of the city is without light and communication.

The city - which had a pre-war population of roughly 300,000 - is surrounded by Russian forces and has sustained heavy damage.

Ukraine war: Images reveal scale of destruction in Mariupol
By The Visual Journalism Team - BBC News - Published1 day ago

A pregnant woman outside a destroyed hospital in Mariupol - IMAGE SOURCE,SERGEI ORLOV

The scale of the destruction in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been revealed in a series of photos and satellite images.
Residential areas have been flattened, a shopping centre destroyed and a maternity hospital attacked. The southern port city has used at least one mass grave to bury the dead.

Map showing locations of key sites and recent attacks on Mariupol


Mariupol, a city of about 400,000, has been subjected to days of heavy bombardment.
Its people are running dangerously short of food and water, the city's deputy mayor Sergei Orlov, says, and there is "no electricity, no water supply, no heating, no sanitary system".
People are being forced to melt snow to drink, and chop wood to cook and keep warm in sub-zero temperatures, he says.

A view of the courtyard after the explosion at the Mariupol children's and maternity hospital - 9 March 2022 IMAGE SOURCE,SERGEI ORLOV

On Wednesday, three people - including a child - were killed and 17 wounded in a devastating strike that destroyed a maternity ward and children's ward of a hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a war crime.

Annotated satellite image of the children's and maternity hospital in Mariupol before the bombing.


A member of the Ukrainian emergency services examines a large bomb crater at the Mariupol children's and maternity hospital - 9 March 2022
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

A short distance away, damage could be seen on the roads close to the university, which also suffered heavy damage.

Before and after image of damage near the university in Mariupol

Images from satellite technology company Maxar have also revealed damage to residential areas to the south and east of the city, now virtually cut off from the outside world.

Satellite images showing damage to homes in Mariupol


Another image shows the damage done to a shopping centre to the west. The roofs of two buildings have been completely destroyed.

Satellite images showing damage to a shopping centre in Mariupol

Mariupol is a key strategic target for Russia. Seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea - the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.