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11:33 24 Mar
Russian warship destroyed in occupied port - Ukrainian officials
Video content
Video caption: Watch: Explosion seen in Berdyansk as navy claims to destroy Russian shipWatch: Explosion seen in Berdyansk as navy claims to destroy Russian ship

More now on reports from Ukrainian officials that a Russian landing ship has been destroyed and two other boats damaged in the occupied Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk.

Video posted by the navy and on social media showed explosions and a big ship on fire at the port, about 70km (44 miles) west of Mariupol, at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Thursday.

The Ukrainian military said its forces had struck a Russian vessel called the Orsk.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar later told Ukrainian TV that the military had hit a "huge target", capable of carrying 20 tanks, 45 armoured vehicles and 400 troops.

The BBC cannot independently verify the claim.

Russian army TV hailed the arrival of the Orsk in Berdyansk last week as an "epic event" as it was the first Russian warship to dock in Berdyansk.

Drone footage filmed by a Russian state TV reporter last week showed an armoured personnel carrier being offloaded from the Orsk in the port. The armoured vehicles were to be used to reinforce Russian troops, the TV report added.


11:41 24 Mar
Street after street, building after building, Mariupol lies in ruins

Hugo Bachega -BBC News, Lviv

A month into the war, there's destruction and suffering almost everywhere in this country. But no place has seen the horrors of Russia's unprovoked aggression like Mariupol.

The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it with no mercy, from air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea.

Almost nothing seems to have been left untouched. Street after street, building after building, the city lies in ruins.

And amid those ruins, 100,000 people are still trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege.

There is no electricity, no gas, no running water. Some have melted snow to drink. Reports say children have died from dehydration.

Bodies are being left in the streets, as it's too dangerous for people to go out and get them. When they're finally collected, some end up buried in mass graves.

Ukrainian forces are fighting hard to keep this city in their hands. The fear, in Mariupol and elsewhere, is that if the Russians can't have it, they will do everything to destroy it.

13:57 24 Mar
What did Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg announce?
If you’ve just joined us here’s a quick summary of what Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg spoke about at his news conference:

He says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the "biggest security crisis in a generation" and "we stand united to keep our alliance strong and our people safe"
Stoltenberg says Nato has agreed to strengthen their defences by moving 40,000 troops to its eastern flank in response to Russia's invasion
He confirmed four new battlegroups will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania
Stoltenberg also said cyber defences are being strengthened and Nato will also help Ukraine defend itself against "biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear threats"
He says the use of chemical weapons "will totally change the nature of the conflict, it will be a blatant violation of international law and it will have widespread consequences"
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed our security environment for the long term and Nato is prepared for the “long haul”, he says


16:25 24 Mar
Russia increasingly isolated - Macron

Following the Nato meeting earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron has been speaking - he says Russia is increasingly isolated on the world stage.

He says it is vital to avoid escalation of the conflict and that is why Nato has made the decision to support Ukraine without itself waging war against Russia.

Nato is also reviewing its strategic positioning as a result of the war, he says.

Macron has long advocated for greater European defence capacity and he returns to this theme, saying that Europe should "shoulder its responsibilities".

But, he says, this capacity would demonstrate that Europe was an active part of Nato rather than something that replaces it.

Sanctions can be ramped up - Macron
Macron says Western powers are ready to ramp up sanctions against Russia if necessary, as they continue to try to force a ceasefire.

"These sanctions have an impact and are tangible and we must continue them for their dissuasive effect," he says.

16:33 24 Mar
Food crisis looming - Macron

Macron has moved on to warning about a looming food crisis - Ukraine and Russia are both major exporters of staple foods but production has been severely disrupted by the war.

He says some countries, including some of those in the Middle East and North Africa, are particularly dependent on Ukrainian and Russian exports.

The situation will be even worse in a year to 18 months, he says, as Ukrainian farmers are unable to sow new crops.

He calls for Western countries and international organisations to mobilise against the coming crisis.

14:29 24 Mar
'I spent three days queueing to escape Ukraine'
Toby Luckhurst -BBC News, Krakow

Photo: Moroccan student Marik - Copyright: BBC
Marik, a 22-year-old Moroccan studying in Zaporizhzhia, south-eastern Ukraine, remembers getting a call from a friend in Dnipro at 05:00 on 24 February.

"She called and said: 'There are some lights in the sky, maybe the invasion has begun.' I said: 'Stop joking, that's impossible, it's not.'" Minutes later, he saw on Telegram that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the start of the attack.

Within an hour, he had thrown his belongings together and boarded a train to Lviv in the west. Marik shows me dozens of videos of him and his fellow students on the 22-hour trip across the country.

Once in western Ukraine, a friend drove them as close to the border with Poland before traffic forced him to turn back. Marik and his friends walked the last 40km (25 miles) overnight to the frontier.

There, officials put the international students in one line and fleeing Ukrainian women and children in another.

Quote Message: It was like hell. We slept in the queue, standing. People made fires, it was so cold.

After three days in line, he finally crossed into Poland.

Now in Krakow, Marik says he will wait in the city in the hope the war ends quickly. If it does not, he'll go back to his hometown of Oudja in eastern Morocco.

But the medical student is keeping busy. His university has kept classes going online, despite the war.

"Because Ukraine is so strong," he says. "We have a war, but we study!"



14:40 24 Mar
More than half of Ukraine's children now displaced - Unicef
Imogen Foulkes -BBC News, Geneva

Photo: Children rest at a collecting point after fleeing from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, 22 March 2022 -Copyright: Reuters

Millions of Ukrainian children have been forced from their homesImage caption: Millions of Ukrainian children have been forced from their homes
After one month of war, more than half of Ukraine's children - 4.3 million of an estimated 7.5 million - have now been displaced, the UN children's organisation Unicef says.

Of those, 1.8 million have fled to neighbouring countries, while 2.5 million are internally displaced inside Ukraine.

"This is a grim milestone that could have lasting consequences for generations to come," Unicef's executive director Catherine Russell said.

"Children’s safety, wellbeing and access to essential services are all under threat from non-stop horrific violence."

As well as the trauma of witnessing war and having to flee their homes, Ukraine's children are suffering because of attacks on health, education and other basic services, the organisation said. An estimated 1.4 million Ukrainians have no access to safe water, 4.6 million have only limited supplies.

Unicef also reports a drop in regular childhood vaccinations against polio and measles across the country.


14:59 24 Mar
Evacuee planning to drive back into devastated Mariupol
Photo: Anna Vorosheva -Copyright: Oliver Carroll
Anna Vorosheva, a businesswoman from Mariupol, has been telling the BBC about her plans to return to the devastated southern city to bring supplies and help others leave.

She left Mariupol on 18 March and is currently in Zaporizhzhia, about 200km (120 miles) away.

She told the BBC World Service's Newshour programme: "My conscience won't let me go any further. Not one single car or service is going in, unless it's driven by individuals, by volunteers... to take supplies in, help people come out.

"I completely understand the risk. But buses are not getting to people. They're having to go 35 kilometres on foot. I'm a 45-year-old woman and strong. But there are women and children and old people and they can't make it out."

Vorosheva described conditions there.

"If you want to know [what it's like in Mariupol], you should go in to your cellar, turn out the light, take no food or water, so it's freezing cold. Don't wash yourself, go to the toilet in the street, not have nappies for babies or for old people," she said.

"People who are ill are rotting to death in their beds. There's no water to cook your pasta. There are no communications. Since 1 March there's been no telephones, no radio, no TV, no internet."


15:12 24 Mar
'Go back home while you're still alive'

Quentin Somerville - BBC News, Kharkiv

The tale of Kharkiv is the story of the army that didn't fail, and an army that failed to win. Defying widespread expectations that it would collapse in short order, Russian forces have been unable to breach the Ukrainian army's lines around the north-eastern city and have not managed to encircle it.

Russia invaded at 05:00 on 24 February. The night before, 22-year-old Vlad and his brother-in-arms Mark, also 22, were at a fellow private's wedding.

When they learned of the attack, Vlad and Mark joined their battalion - the 22nd Motorised Infantry - and headed straight to the front lines. They have been there ever since.

A month on, while Russian missiles still strike at the city centre and at least half the 1.4m population have fled, there are neighbourhoods that remain untouched.

Against the regular beat of Russian artillery outside, I ask Mark and Vlad what they are fighting for.

Vlad's reply is short and to the point, "For peace in Ukraine." Mark shoots him a glance, "My comrade says for peace in Ukraine," he laughs, then he swears and asks: "Who knows? These people came to our land. No-one was waiting for them here, no-one was calling them."

Do they think of the soldiers on the other side, I wonder. Vlad says he has a message for them: "Run. Run away. Either you stay here in the ground or you go back home."

He pauses, but then adds: "Don't kill kids, destroy homes and families."

This time it is Mark who is to the point:

Go back home while you are still alive."


15:37 24 Mar
'New Ukrainian flag hung on city building in occupied Kherson'
Photo: Ukraine flag over local council building in Kherson -Copyright: Igor Kolykhaev
Image caption: Mayor Igor Kolykhaev posted this image said to show a new Ukrainian flag hung on a city council building

In Kherson - the only large Ukrainian city captured by Russian forces - Mayor Igor Kolykhaev has posted on his Facebook page to say a huge new Ukrainian flag has been draped over the local city council building.

He says: "On the night when the city council was fired, the rope on which our state flag was held was interrupted. Today we found the opportunity to hang a new one."

Local officials have previously said there was no support for Moscow's actions in Ukraine among the city's largely Russian-speaking population.

Residents have staged regular, peaceful protests in the city, urging Russian troops to "go home".

16:15 24 Mar
UN demands aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine
The UN General Assembly has adopted a new non-binding resolution that is demanding an "immediate" stop to Russia's war in Ukraine.

The resolution also calls for aid access and civilian protection in Ukraine, and criticises Russia for creating a "dire" humanitarian situation after Moscow invaded its neighbour one month ago.

In the vote at the UN's headquarters in New York, 140 countries voted in favour and 38 abstained.

Five countries voted against the measure - Russia, Syria, North Korean, Eritrea and Belarus.

It follows a resolution on 2 March that similarly demanded Russia immediately cease its use of force.


19:05 24 Mar
WHO says it can't get medical supplies into Mariupol

The World Health Organization says it is still unable to get desperately needed medical supplies into the besieged southern town of Mariupol, and also Mykolaiv, which is further west on the Black Sea.

Tarik Jasarevic, of the WHO, has just arrived in the central-eastern city of Dnipro, and told the BBC the UN health agency is setting up a staging post to move supplies, but has not been able to reach the two areas.

The WHO says it has verified 64 attacks on healthcare up to 21 March. Jasarevic said this hospitals, medical centres and ambulances had been hit.

He said such attacks have "a devastating effect on everyone".

Health workers don’t feel safe doing their jobs, patients are afraid to seek treatment, and immunisation programmes, care for chronic disease such as diabetes and cancer, and maternity care were all affected, he said.

If healthcare is not protected "the community will just basically be terrified, knowing that there are no more humanitarian boundaries to the war and there is no safe place," he said.

Photo: Doctor taking pictures outside damaged psychiatric hospital in Mykolaiv, 22 March 2022
Copyright: Reuters

16:54 24 Mar
Don't use chemical weapons, German leader warns

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also been speaking following the Nato meeting - he warned Russia against any use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.

"Should Russia be preparing a false-flag operation in order to use such weapons, this would be in violation of all rules, agreements and conventions," he said.

"It is our concern not only to point this out but also to warn in the conversations we have: Don't do it," he added.

Sanctions on Russia were already having a strong impact and G7 nations were prepared to add more sanctions if necessary, he said.

However he said it had been a deliberate decision to exclude imports of Russian energy from sanctions.

Responding to a Russian announcement that Russian energy would now have to be paid for in Russia's rouble currency, Scholz said details including currency had already been fixed in contracts.

Germany would begin construction of terminals for imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) this year, he said. The US is a major exporter of LNG.


17:27 24 Mar
What did Boris Johnson say?
Here's a quick summary of the UK prime minister's key messages in his press conference at the emergency Nato summit in Brussels:

The UK will ramp up lethal aid to Ukraine “at scale” in order to help President Zelensky to defend his country from its “bullying neighbour”
The UK will send 6,000 more missiles and £25m in unrestricted funding for Ukraine's armed forces
There will be a new deployment of UK troops to Bulgaria, on top of a doubling of UK troops both in Poland and in Estonia
Nato and the G7 are united in their determination to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas
The UK PM again ruled out a no-fly zone over Ukraine - saying it would involve the RAF taking down Russian fast jets
Johnson said he was “not remotely anti-Russian” and was sympathetic to the Russian people, but not Vladimir Putin
Talk about the use of nuclear weapons is a distraction, the use of conventional weapons in Ukraine is "absolutely barbaric"
He said he believes President Putin understands the use of chemical weapons by Russia would be "catastrophic for him"


18:05 24 Mar
What did President Biden say?
Here’s a quick summary of the main points as the US President Joe Biden addressed the media from the Nato summit in Brussels.

The US is announcing new sanctions on more than 400 individuals and entities, including more than 300 members of the Russian Duma, oligarchs and defence companies
Nato has never been more united, which is the opposite of what President Putin expected to happen
If Russia were to use chemical weapons, the US would respond, and “the nature of response will depend on the nature of the use"
Biden said he had made clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would be putting his economic relations with the US and EU in “significant jeopardy” if he were to help Russia
The US president said he would like to see Russia removed from the G20, but if that’s not possible, Ukraine should attend as an observer
He stressed that Western countries must stay "totally, thoroughly united"


18:19 24 Mar
Nato wants war to continue - Russia foreign ministry
Russia's foreign ministry has been reacting to today's Nato summit.

It says the decision to continue support to Kyiv shows that the Western alliance wants the conflict to continue, in a statement reported by Russia's Ria news agency.

The West was "reaping a terrible harvest" from its decision to arm Ukraine, which had encouraged the Ukrainian government to use force against Russian-backed separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine, the ministry said.

Russia has previously said that people in the separatist enclaves were facing "genocide".


Mar18:37 24 Mar
No indication sanctions are working yet
Nick Beake -BBC News, Brussels -analysis

Despite the proclamations ringing out here at Nato HQ - support for Ukraine and a determination to punish Russia financially - I’ve just had a sobering insight from one Western official who was in the leaders’ meeting earlier.

Apparently, not one leader could give any indication that sanctions had begun to change Putin's mind or affect his behaviour in his war on Ukraine.

The Nato strategy depends on supplying the Ukrainians with weapons while waiting for the unprecedented financial penalties levied on Russia to persuade him to stop attacking his neighbour.

But for millions of Ukrainians - displaced, under fire and sleeping in bunkers for a month - it is the most terrifying of waits. More civilians will die as the war grinds on.

Nato figures insist publicly and behind the scenes that they’re doing all they can to arm Ukraine, while not escalating the conflict or becoming directly involved - which, they say, could have dire consequences.

But I’m reminded of the young family I met exactly a month ago, deep under the streets of Kyiv in the shelter of a metro station just after Russia had launched its attack.

Alexander cradling his young son asked: “Where are Nato to help us?”

Many Ukrainians want much more support from their powerful Western friends, and they want it now.

21:21 24 Mar
Russia and Ukraine swap prisoners
Russia and Ukraine say they have conducted the first exchange of captured soldiers since the war began a month ago.

Ten Ukrainian soldiers were exchanged for 10 Russian soldiers, officials said.

In a separate exchange, 11 Russian civilian sailors who had been rescued from a ship that sank off Odesa were swapped for 19 Ukrainian seafarers from a ship captured by the Russians while they were trying to seize Snake Island in the Black Sea at the very start of the war.

The ship itself is being returned to Ukraine via a port in Turkey.

Earlier this week Russia and Ukraine said they had exchanged nine Russian prisoners for the mayor of Melitopol, a city in south-eastern Ukraine that has been captured by the Russian army.


21:39 24 Mar
Pig's head left at Moscow radio editor's door
The editor of Russia's last independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, which was taken off air by the Russian authorities days into the war, says he will ask police to investigate how a pig's head came to be dumped outside his apartment and an anti-Semitic slogan glued onto the front door.

Aleksei Venediktov - who had led Ekho Moskvy for decades - said he would not allow Russia to be turned into Nazi Germany.

He said his wife had thrown away "all that rubbish" - but they had CCTV footage. He said it showed a courier from a delivery service. The company said he wasn't one of their employees.



22:11 24 Mar
Russia blocking aid to Mariupol but handing out its own

About 2,700 people were able to leave the besieged and destroyed city of Mariupol today, Ukraine's deputy prime minister says.

But Iryna Vereshchuk accused Russia of blocking humanitarian aid convoys into the city for the past three days. The World Health Organization also says it has been unable to reach Mariupol.

Russia has taken control of parts of the city. In one such area it handed out supplies to hundreds of residents who emerged from their places of shelter, according to a Reuters news report from the city.

At the scene was Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Donetsk, as well as an official from Putin's United Russia party, Andrei Turchak, according to pro-Russian separatist media.

Turchak wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia would rebuild Mariupol but added - "Make no mistake, Russia is here forever".

22:46 24 Mar
Chernobyl workers can't get to work due to shelling - IAEA
Bethany Bell -BBC News, Vienna

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says Ukraine has told it that Russian forces are shelling checkpoints in the city of Slavutych.

The city of around 25,000 residents is where many workers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant live.

Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, has been under the control of Russian forces for about a month.

Ukraine has told the IAEA that the shelling is endangering the homes and families of staff at Chernobyl and preventing the further rotation of personnel to and from the site.

Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, said he was concerned by the development which comes just a few days after staff were allowed to return home after nearly four weeks without a change of shift.

He said the IAEA would continue to closely monitor the situation.



'We buy drawing things for the kids'
Toby Luckhurst -BBC News, Krakow

Photo: Child's drawing given to Margriet Helmhout -Copyright: Margriet Helmhout

Some 2.2 million people have now crossed into Poland from Ukraine. With Ukrainian men of military age prevented from leaving, the vast majority of them are women and children - and many are staying in Krakow, Poland's second largest city and the first entry point for many refugees.

Margriet Helmhout owns a sock factory in the northern Netherlands. She first donated some of her wares to the refugees before deciding to drive down herself to help, volunteering at a kitchen in the square outside Krakow's main station.

The trestle tables are lined with blue-and-yellow napkins, matching the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Boxes behind the volunteers are packed with plastic carrier bags, sanitary products and writing materials.

Margriet tells me she quickly realised that the refugees needed more than clothes and food: "We were outside in the square in my car, with a table in front. We only bought drawing things - books, pencils, children's stuff," she said. "Then the women are more happy - the children have something to do."

Margriet shows me a drawing the children made for her, a sunset with Ukraine scrawled across the top. "It made me cry," she said.



2:25
Civilians abducted in Russian-occupied regions - UN

Image Caption: After Viktoriia Roshchyna was released from detention, a hostage-style video began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram channels
Copyright: Telegram

Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas, the United Nations has told the BBC.

At least 36 cases of civilian detentions were verified by the UN, with families often denied any information about the fate of those being held.

Ukrainians say they fear an escalating campaign of kidnappings and intimidation, as Russia struggles to assert control over towns it captures.

Viktoriia Roshchyna, a journalist, was working in occupied areas in the east of the country when she was taken by unidentified men on 15 March.

Her employer, Hromadske, said she "was probably detained by the FSB", Russia's internal intelligence service, based on witness accounts of her being taken in the city of Berdyansk.

She was released six days later when a hostage-style video - apparently recorded under duress - began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram outlets.

In it Roshchyna said Russia had not taken her captive and thanked Moscow's forces for "saving her life".

Ukraine war: The priest shot at a checkpoint
By Viktoriia Zhuhan - BBC Ukraine
Published 7 hours ago

Photo: Rostyslav Dudarenko, Pavlo Naydenov, Serhii Tsoma (left to right)
IMAGE SOURCE,SERHII TSOMA
Image caption, Village priest Rostyslav Dudarenko (L) with fellow priests Pavlo Naydenov and Serhii Tsoma (R)

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said the country is in the process of documenting thousands of incidents believed to contravene its criminal code on the rules of war.

As of 24 March, there have been 2,472 cases documented by her office. On Wednesday, Ms Venediktova outlined to the media how the country is handling these cases.

"Where we see that we will be successful in Ukrainian jurisdiction, and where the perpetrator of a crime will physically be in Ukraine, we will follow one strategy. If we understand that we are not able to have success in Ukraine, we will put our resources towards the International Criminal Court, so that a specific person, an individual, suffers the punishment."

The following is an account gathered by the BBC of just one of the incidents that have been logged as a suspected war crime.

It was just over a week into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A group of volunteers - neighbours and friends - from the small village of Yasnohorodka, 40km west of Kyiv, had taken up their positions at a checkpoint guarding the entrance to the community.

Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was already brutally fierce. Across the country, checkpoints were springing up at the entrance to towns and villages - mostly manned by local volunteers without any formal military training.

On the afternoon of 5 March, Rostyslav Dudarenko, the village priest, was at the Yasnohorodka checkpoint. His role was to check approaching vehicles. But like all military chaplains he was also there to offer the group spiritual support. He was dressed in civilian clothes.

It is not possible to establish exactly what happened, but one survivor of the attack, Yukhym (not his real name), told the BBC he had been manning the checkpoint with Dudarenko and around a dozen others when they learned three Russian tanks had driven through the village. He says the group decided to hide in the woods, ready to confront them if necessary.

As they approached the checkpoint, the Russian troops started "firing in all directions", Yukhym told the BBC. "When they realised we were hiding in the grass, they went off road to run us over with tanks."

He says the tanks had driven back to the road when Dudarenko decided to break cover.

"I saw Rostyslav raise the cross above his head, get up from his hideaway, screaming something and walking towards them. Perhaps he wanted to stop them. I tried to call him."

He says shots were then fired in the direction of the priest, and from his viewpoint at the time, they appeared to be aimed directly at Dudarenko. "And that was it. He made just a couple of steps and fell."

Yukhym, who himself was shot and injured in the attack, believes they would all have been killed if Ukraine's armed forces had not at that moment arrived to push the Russian forces back.

The voluntary group Dudarenko, 45, had joined had no military status. A couple had some military training - having previous experience in the long-running conflict with Russia in the Donbas in the east, according to another volunteer called Eduard (not his real name). Some were simply amateur hunters. Most were over the age of 50, he told the BBC.

Eduard, who was stationed at a different checkpoint, arrived just as the Russian tanks were driving away to find bodies scattered on the road. He said these included Dudarenko and his assistant - who had also been unarmed - two other defence volunteers and another person he did not know.

Dudarenko's mother Nadiia says her only son was determined to play his part.

"He wanted to be able to protect everyone," Nadiia told the BBC. "I tried to talk him out of it but I couldn't argue with him."

Photo: Dudarenko and his congregation hold a service at a monument to villagers killed by Nazis in 1941
IMAGE SOURCE,TETYANA PYLYPCHUK
Image caption, Dudarenko and his congregation hold a memorial service for villagers killed by Nazis in 1941

The group were armed with hunting rifles plus a small number of Russian army Kalashnikovs that had come into their possession, and had just three bulletproof vests between them. But as a priest, Dudarenko refused to bear arms, his friend and fellow priest Serhii Tsoma told the BBC.

This made him particularly vulnerable when he decided to confront the tanks, but such an action was in his nature, according to eyewitness Yukhym.

"Rostyslav was a kind and optimistic person. I think that's why he went to try and stop the Russians."

He was well known in Yasnohorodka as someone always ready to help others, driving round the village to collect older congregation members before Sunday mass, says his friend Tsoma.

His services themselves were also self-sacrificing, says one of his regular congregation, Tetyana Pylypchuk.

Dudarenko belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was finally granted independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019, in a move never recognised by Russia.

Before the formal split, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was divided between two branches, one loyal to Moscow, and one loyal to Kyiv. Although Dudarenko served in a church aligned with Kyiv, when pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych took power in Ukraine in 2010 the Moscow Patriarchate began to take over Kyiv Patriarchate churches, including the one Dudarenko served in.

So rather than betray his principles, his friends say, he left the church and conducted his services out in the open - even in the rain. He later built a makeshift church in his trailer, with the help of donations.

Photo: Rostyslav Dudarenko held services as a Ukrainian Orthodox priest in a makeshift church
IMAGE SOURCE,FACEBOOK
Image caption, Rostyslav Dudarenko held services as a Ukrainian Orthodox priest in a makeshift church

"Our church is orphaned without you, Father," wrote Tetyana in a tribute on her Facebook page.

As has been the case with thousands of such incidents across the country over the past few weeks, the killings were swiftly logged by both the police and local and national public prosecutor's offices, with details published on their respective Facebook pages.

The cases - suspected contraventions of Ukraine's article 438: Violation of the rules of warfare - have also been uploaded on to a centralised website used by Ukraine's state institutions.

Ms Venediktova told the BBC in an interview recorded last week in English that such documentation of evidence was critical.

"In the office of prosecutor general we have a special department of war… all law enforcement agencies help us… to investigate war crimes. It's our main priority.

"Of course, we don't have enough investigators, that's why we created a common website - warcrimes.gov.ua." The website is used not just by the prosecutor general's office but by other state institutions such as Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice, to document all evidence.

"It's very important for us," she explained. "[The evidence] should be acceptable in our Ukrainian courts, they should be acceptable in the ICC, and in other jurisdictions."

As for the 5 March incident in Yasnohorodka, once the investigation into the shooting has been concluded, a court indictment will be issued, says the Kyiv Oblast district prosecutor's office.

"The prosecution is doing everything to establish the circumstances of each and every war crime, and each and every perpetrator: from a soldier, to a general, to the high military and political leadership of the aggressor state," it said in a statement.

It added that in some cases Russian soldiers were already facing the first stage of Ukrainian prosecutions, "so we are not just talking about prospects of sentences in absentia. In each specific case war criminals will be punished in accordance with the law of Ukraine".

Svyatoslav Khomenko contributed to this report

9:25 BREAKING
Mariupol theatre: 300 may have died - Ukraine officials

Photo: Rubble and debris outside the ruins / remains of the Mariupol Theatre in the aftermath of a bombing attack
Copyright: Reuters

An update now on last week's theatre bombing in the southern city of Mariupol.

Until now, no death toll had been released as the debris and relentless shelling have made it hard to verify.

Now Ukrainian officials say some 300 people could have died in the strike, which hit a theatre where hundreds of people were sheltering.

Ukrainian officials say Russia carried out the strike. Russia denies attacking the theatre, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country.

"From eyewitnesses, information is emerging that about 300 people died in the Drama Theatre of Mariupol following strikes by a Russian aircraft," Mariupol city hall wrote on Telegram.

Communication with Mariupol is incredibly difficult, so it’s hard to independently verify information.

More than a week after the attack, it remains unclear how many people were in the theatre at the time.

Estimates from the city council, civilians interviewed by the BBC and the Human Rights Watch campaign group suggest between 500 and 1,000 were sheltering in the building days before the attack.

Analysis
Posted at 10:2810:28 ANALYSIS
Could chemical weapons be used?

Lyse Doucet -Chief International Correspondent

We've seen day in, day out, the extraordinary sense of resistance and patriotism among the Ukrainians.

But if it comes to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, it's a totally different game - a totally different battlefield.

The Ukrainian armed forces don't have that kind of protective gear. But interestingly - and hopefully not ominously - Nato is now talking about providing them with that kind of equipment. A Nato task force has also been activated to deal with potential scenarios.

Would they be used?

If this war drags on, if conventional weapons such as the long-range artillery that is terrorising the city of Mariupol doesn't work, and President Vladimir Putin wants to find a game-changer, he could look to chemical weapons.

He did it in Syria, when he was working with President Bashar al-Assad's security forces. And it worked.

Chlorine gas was also used in November 2016, the last month of a four-year siege of east Aleppo. It was dropped by helicopter.

In Ukraine, the Russians have already gone to the UN Security Council - just before a recent leak of ammonia at a chemical plant caused by Russian shelling - saying the Ukrainians have a US-backed biological and chemical weapons programme. They were met with a wall of derision and denial.

So there are signs that a chemical attack could happen, but no sign yet on the ground.