residential districts in the city of kharkiv, calling it a war crime. in a late—night video address, mr zelensky said there were eyewitness accounts of civilians being deliberately targeted during a sustained attack on ukraine's second—biggest city, and he called for the whole of ukraine to become a no—fly zone for russian aircraft. reports suggest that a convoy of russian military seen advancing on kyiv is substantially longer than earlier reports. satellite imagery company maxar technology, which provided these images, says the convoy actually stretches much further than 27 kilometres. half a million people have left ukraine since the invasion began, with some cities witnessing a frantic scramble to escape. many are travelling to poland, which borders the west of the country.

now on bbc news, stephen sackur speaks to ukrainian writer andrey kurkov on hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. russians and ukrainians know each other intimately, thanks to history, language, culture. now they're at war, killing each other, thanks to vladimir putin's decision to launch an invasion of his neighbour. my guest today is an embodiment of the complex layers of the ukraine—russia relationship. leading ukrainian novelist andrey kurkov was born in russia, writes in russian, but is a ukrainian citizen and fierce putin critic. can ukraine withstand moscow's effort to undermine its nationhood?

andrey kurkov in western ukraine, welcome to hardtalk. hello. hello, and thank you so much forjoining us at a time which i can imagine for your family, like so many ukrainians, is just so full of stress. let me ask you this. your home is kyiv, but you're not... yes. ..you're not there any more. you have moved. tell me what has happened to you in the last few days. well, four days ago, we were woken up by three explosions. we live in the central part of kyiv, next to golden gate and saint sophia cathedral from 12th century. so, i mean, we were shocked, but i understood immediately that the war has started.

then in one hour, we had two more explosions, and i started looking out of the windows. and i saw several women with dogs...walking their dogs, but no cars. and i think at this moment, actually, to me and my wife, the understanding came that this is the beginning of the things which will change our life, change life of ukraine and probably of europe also. this was the first day of war. but somehow, before that, the evening before, we had a party at home and i made borscht, which is a traditional beetroot soup with beans and meat. and i invited a couple ofjournalists who are my old friends, and an ambassador of brazil, and i sort ofjoked that this is last borscht in kyiv. it turned out, for now, indeed, last borscht in kyiv. now... and if i may, mr kurkov, i'm going to ask you some personal and probably difficult questions, but you, if i may say so, have just passed your 60th birthday.

so, as i understand the rules in ukraine, you are not required to stay inside the country and serve in the military. but i know you have sons who are of, if i can put it this way, fighting age. what are you as a family going to do? well, my family is british except for me. i am ukrainian citizen and my children, two sons and my daughter and my wife, are british citizens, so i mean they don't have to fight, but they want to be useful and they were checking today in the place where we are staying, even it's possible tojoin territorial defence or any kind of organisation that is helping the ukrainian army. do you believe the russians — again, this is a weird question — but would like to get their hands on you? you are one of the most famous novelists in ukraine. you're also a long—time fierce critic of vladimir putin, and the russians know all about you. do you think that they would

like to get their hands on you? well, i was advised to move from kyiv, and i moved to...we moved to our village and then i was advised to go further. so, i mean, i had information which i cannot prove that i am on a wanted list or i am just somebody who irritates very much some people in russia. my books are not available in russia from 2014, not printed from 2008. and actually my ukrainian publisher was... ..told that my books cannot cross the russian border because he was trying to sell my books to russia after they stopped publishing them. so, i assume there is some kind of danger, but i don't concentrate on this. i mean, i have a lot of other things to do. now, some in our audience will not be familiar with your work. death and the penguin is very well—known around the world. some of your other novels have focused in particular on what has happened

politically in ukraine. in particular, you've written about the donbas. you've also written a memoir of living through 2014 and putin's decision to annex crimea and move forces into eastern ukraine. you've looked very carefully at this relationship between ukraine and russia in recent years. i just wonder whether you personally were taken by surprise when he launched the full invasion. well, i wasn't completely surprised because at the time when, two weeks ago, 60% of ukrainians didn't believe the war is possible, i thought that the war is really possible because vladimir putin is getting older. i mean, he wants to leave a legacy and he wants to be remembered for something great, something like restoration of russian empire or a new kind of soviet union. and ukraine was always very, i would say, something very irritating for him because he couldn't imagine new empire or new russian soviet union without ukraine.

actually, he misinterprets the history. he says that ukraine is small russia, ukraine is the younger sister of russian kingdom, but in fact, actually, ukraine, kyiv is mother of all cities, of all russian cities. kyiv is 1,540 years old. moscow is 875 years old. moscow was built by kyiv�*s prince, kyiv�*s count, yuli dolgoruky, who is also buried in kyiv. so, i mean, he cannot imagine ukraine being independent for so long, and he doesn't accept that ukrainians and russians are two different people, and they are two different people with two different mentalities, opposite mentalities, because for ukrainians... ah, well, yes, this gets to the very heart of, in a sense, what putin's message to the world is. i mean, he wants to delegitimise the very idea of a ukrainian nation. he says it's a fiction.

he says that had not lenin given ukraine too much of a sense of identity within the ussr, there would be no modern ukraine. and i just wonder whether you feel there are any people inside the nation—state of ukraine today, that is ethnic russian people, who would identify with putin's version of history. i think you can find these people. i mean, i am one of probably 7—8 million of ethnic russians, and, i mean, most of the ethnic russians are not interested in politics, but they love it in ukraine and they consider themselves ukrainian citizens. but there are between 10—15% of russian speakers who always vote for the pro—russian political parties, and they are always organised and we understand who finances them. but so, i mean, there is 10—15% of population which is either nostalgic about soviet youth or soviet times orjust considers their origin,

russian origin, is enough reason to love putin and to be loyal to russia secretly or openly. well, what are your feelings, mr kurkov, when you see putin on your tv screen saying that he is determined to save russians inside ukraine from — and i'm using his word — "genocide". we know that is a lie, but i just wonder how you feel as an ethnic russian who's lived for so many years inside ukraine, how you feel when you see putin saying that. well, i mean, i know you know kyiv very well, and kyiv was... when i was a young man, 99% of kyivites were speaking russian. now there are probably 60—70% of kyivites who are russophones, who speak russian, or, at the same time, they can speak and understand ukrainian. so, i mean, the russian

language was and remains very well—heard and used here, and nobody is punished for either speaking russian or writing books in russian or publishing books in russian. i mean, there is a separate, one can say, cultural... ..i don't know, sphere of russophonia. of course, i mean, there are right—wing radicals who don't like russian language, but at the same time, there are right—wing radicals who are ethnic russians and who don't mind russian language. so, i mean, they mostly actually direct their anger at putin and at russian chauvinism and at the desire of putin to enslave ukraine again. regarding that mutual history, it was not always mutual, ukraine and russian history. in 16th—17th century, ukraine was independent territory practically ruled by hetmans, who were military chiefs of cossacks elected in open elections by cossacks

themselves, together with the higher officers. there was diplomatic service. they were corresponding... ..correspondence with hungarian tsar, with turkish sultan. there were... there was a legal system. probably, it was also corrupt, but it was completely independent from russia. ukrainians never had a tsar, never had a king or royalfamily. i don't think any... yeah, i take your point. i don't think many independent historians saw much validity in a lot of what putin was claiming about ukraine's history. but, nonetheless, are you not in danger of going too far the other way when you say, and i think you said it to me pretty much earlier in this interview, you seem to say, "oh, we ukrainians are fundamentally different from russians because russia has a sort of collective mind—set which is very reflective of a sort of soviet approach. and we ukrainians are highly individualistic, maybe chaotic, but ultimately much more akin to a european individualist way of thinking."

that sounds very binary. is it really as simple as that? well, i mean, this is maybe a simplification, because you can find also ukrainians with collective mentality. and these ukrainians lived actually in crimea and in donbas. and they were... i mean, they were nostalgic in crimea about tsarist times because, i mean, there's some kind of cult of... romanov family was supported in crimea, and half of souvenirs that you could bring from crimea were connected with the history of royal family of russia. at the same time, in donbas, the soviet nostalgia was supported, and one of the favourite or most favourite tv channels that is probably still watched there, it is a russian tv channel, nostalgiya, which shows soviet films, very often black and white, 24 hours a day. let me ask you this. are you reconsidering your lifelong artistic decision

to write primarily in russian? because, you know, there are ukrainian writers who think that's a form of sort of cultural artistic betrayal. well, i mean, i did have a lot of discussions with people who say that if you write in russian, you are a russian writer, not ukrainian writer, so you have to change the language. i did write a couple of nonfiction books in ukrainian and a couple of children's books in ukrainian, but, i mean, russian language is my mother tongue and i can do much more with the russian language. and i have readers, both ukrainian—speaking and russian—speaking readers, and my books are translated in ukrainian as books of other russian language writers in ukraine. so this is just a part of national literature, like we have also hungarian—language writers in tra nscarpathian region. we have crimean tatar writers. yeah, i mean, language is important. and you've already made plain your feelings about putin's narrative on ukraine,

its history, its culture, its language. but was there not a moment in the recent past when the ukrainian government played into putin's hands in a sense, by clamping down on russian language media? for example, closing down some russian—language tv stations, making russian language newspapers publish in ukrainian, as well, which effectively destroyed their business model. some human rights groups express concern about that, and i just wonder whether you think it was a mistake to do that. some of the decisions were definitely mistaken, and they were, i think, upsetting those russian speakers who were not politically engaged, but then probably they, after that, decided to vote for pro—russian parties or they voted always for pro—russian parties. i mean, i agree that there was some disbalance in taking the decisions regarding the language, but also, i mean, the russian language was used from the...probably from the end of

�*90s as a political instrument. so, i mean, if you are russian speaker, you were considered by russia, by putin, by his entourage, you were considered belonging to russian world. this humanitarian project that was started by russian orthodox church and the russian government. and actually, through this project, russia wanted to influence the world through all russian speakers — from israel to brazil and shanghai. so, i mean, this is why the fear of any kind of promotion of russian language was so strong in ukrainian—language—speaking society. just one more element of the putin narrative i want to go through with you, and that is his notion of neo—fascists, extremists, and dangerous far—right elements woven into ukraine's politics and military. now, i mean, there is no doubt

that that very far—right, extreme—right ideology does have a place in ukraine. it has a place in some political movements and some militia military movements. do you think that, again, the kyiv government over time has failed to address that in the way that they should have done? well, the society addressed it, and actually no right, extreme—right groups or political parties made it into parliament. so even moderate nationalists didn't make it into parliament. so you don't have these people, neither in the government or in the parliament. you have some extreme—right politicians in regional, in two or three regional councils, but they are not influential at all. the azov. .. the so—called azov militia men who we sometimes see parading in kyiv, and who we can only assume now, some of them might well be on the front lines — i mean, how do

you feel about them? because, again, they express an extreme far—right ideology. well, you know, actually they are coming from football fans, at least half of these people, and they're coming not from western ukraine, but originally from dnipropetrovsk region, from south—east. and this is a phenomenon which i don't understand until today, but we are talking about, like, several hundred people in the country of 40 million. it is not a very large, a very noticeable movement. i mean, you can notice them on special historical days, like birthday of stepan bandera, who was one of the leaders of ukrainian nationalism when western ukraine belonged to poland. i imagine, mr kurkov, right now where you are, living obviously in temporary accommodation in western ukraine, like so many of us, you're watching the tv and you are seeing the truly horrifying scenes of attacks on ukrainian cities.

most recently, kharkiv has been hit by multiple rocket attacks. civilians are being killed, we know that. what is this doing to ukrainian society right now, do you believe? well, i mean, it is a very stressful time and actually what is happening is that society once again — like during maidan, euromaidan — got consolidated against a common enemy. so, i mean, people from different political groups, opposite opinions, they got together and they are joining the army now. there is a mobilisation announced two days ago, so there are huge queues, and actually there are places where you cannot get into the army or territorial defence because they have more than enough for now. mm—hm. i hope, actually... and this gives me hope that ukraine will defend its independence. and of course, i mean, we can lose again a chunk of territory because,

i mean, it's difficult to fight on the front line, which is 3,000 kilometres long and at the same time defend big cities from the russian forces. indeed. but i hope we will withstand. i am very interested in the political culture. because, again, in your writing, you've addressed some of the problems, some of the chaos that we've seen in ukraine's journey toward democracy in the last 20 years. back in 2014, around the time of the euromaidan, you said ukraine is a complex, multi—ethnic country in desperate need of intelligent, professional politicians. so, here we are in 2022, facing an existential challenge. do you think ukraine's politicians are stepping up to the challenge? i think they are trying hard. i was surprised by president zelensky, and i am surprised by the minister of defence, who is not a professional officer or man from the army. so, i mean, there are some politicians who are taking

responsibility, taking decisions, and working 24 hours a day. and actually, at the same time, they are open and they are accessible. and i'm afraid to say that... i mean, this war can become finally the best university for ukrainian statehood and for ukrainian statesmen. because, i mean, only if you are really defending your country, you can afterwards work on resurrection of the country, reconstruction, recreation, and making it civilised again. briefly, i want you to address volodymyr zelensky individually, cos, again, on the eve of war, you were saying many people in ukraine are disappointed by zelensky�*s unfulfilled promises. well, now we see a man who dresses in military fatigues, who is extraordinarily adept at getting his defiant message across using social media platforms and appears to be really galvanising the country. what do you, as a writer and communicator, make

of zelensky right now? well, there might be different reasons, but obviously he's behaving the very, very right way for a president in such a situation. at some point, i thought about salvador allende, because i thought that actually his...zelensky�*s idea and attitude is correct, but he is not strong enough. but now it seems to me that i was wrong again and he is actually standing strong, and he gets more and more support also from his previous critics in ukrainian society. so, i am one of his critics, and i stopped criticising him. right. now, you're a writer, not a fighter, but do you believe that there are things that the artistic community, that the sort of wielders of, if i can put it this way, soft power rather than military power, things that they can do to contribute right now?

i'm thinking, you know, we've seen decisions taken in the arts world, in the sporting world, to try to isolate russia. i just wonder if you think that makes any difference. it does make a lot of difference, i think. and actually artists and writers in ukraine are very politicised and very engaged. and i am, as a president of ukrainian pen centre, can say that we are organising also different translations of the pieces of information about daily actual situation in ukraine, for foreignjournalists. we are organising panel discussions online, in english again. we are trying to keep in touch with every member of artistic society and check who needs help, who needs evacuation, who needs medicine. so, i mean, there is a solidarity very visible now. and what about, you know, with your knowledge of russian culture, as well, and russian

language, how much do you think they, in moscow and in russia, will care about being ostracised and isolated when it comes to international artistic and sporting events? not a lot. i mean, some artists will be upset, but some artists are already out of russia, and they don't want to come back until the government changes or the president changes. but generally, of course, it doesn't influence them very much. a lot of people in russian artistic world are supporting putin and they're approving this war. i mean, like very famous singer baskov and some mariinsky theatre actors, etc. so, i mean, i don't think it does influence a majority of artists. but what is making them upset that they cannot fly now to barcelona or to cyprus. they cannot use their visa cards, if they are issued by russian banks, in europe.

so the discomfort of life because of the war, this is what upsets russians now and, actually, isaw it on youtube today. a final thought, i guess you have to consider whether you are going to stay in ukraine, you also have to consider whether you believe your country has a viable future as an independent, free country. what do you think? i think ukraine will remain independent, because for ukrainians independence is more important than stability, and for russia, stability is more important than freedom. so, i mean, i don't know what size will ukraine remain after the war. i hope it will be still big european country. but i'm sure 100% that ukraine will remain independent and will survive this ordeal. and will you stay? i will stay until the very end. i mean, if the danger is 100%

and the country is almost occupied, then probably i will have to take my family out. andrey kurkov, we thank you very much indeed forjoining us on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. monday was a bit grey, wasn't it, for many of us, with outbreaks of rain at times. in fact, this is leek in staffordshire, and a fairly typical shot through monday afternoon. as the rain eased, it turned quite misty and murky. and the rain is sitting across the far south east as we speak, but it is allowing this area of high pressure to build in behind. so, quite a contrast

with the feel of the weather first thing tuesday morning. perhaps lows down to —3 where we keep those clear skies, but where the cloud and the rain lingers, it will be a relatively mild start, 7—8, maybe even nine degrees. there will be some outbreaks of showery rain to begin with across the far south coast, but as we go through the afternoon, that rain may welljust nudge a little bit further north. so, if we draw a line from the bristol channel over to the wash, outbreaks of rain quite possible. further north, after that chilly start, that's where we'll keep the sunshine through scotland, northern ireland, northern england. highs generally between 8—10 celsius. now, that weather front actually drifts its way steadily north and east. a little ridge of high pressure builds in, though, across scotland, so it does look likely that first thing on wednesday morning, could be quite a chilly start here. again, —4, —5 degrees not out of the question. where we keep that cloud and rain, it will be relatively mild, but again a grey, drab start to wednesday. that cloud will continue to push its way steadily northwards throughout the day,

perhaps brightening up a little in the south. but top temperatures through the afternoon between 7—11 degrees. there's more rain to come moving in from the west, as you can see. that weather front will gradually drift its way steadily eastwards, so it is going to bring some outbreaks of rain with it from the west on thursday and a freshening wind for a time once the rain moves through. so, it may well start off dry in sheltered eastern areas. not set to last. the cloud and the outbreaks of rain will start to move in from the west throughout the day. temperatures once again ranging from around 7—12 degrees. now, once we've got thursday out of the way, fingers crossed, it looks likely that the weather story will quieten down just a little with an area of high pressure building in. so, just in time for the start of the weekend. so, as we move through friday, potentially into saturday, it's drier, settled, with some springlike sunshine to look forward to. take care.

this is bbc news. ukraine's president said the bombardment of the country amounts to a war crime. russian forces have _ amounts to a war crime. russian forces have fired _ amounts to a war crime. russian forces have fired from _ amounts to a war crime. russian forces have fired from rocket - forces have fired from rocket artillery. it is clearly a war crime. , , , ., crime. reports suggest a huge convoy of _ crime. reports suggest a huge convoy of russian _ crime. reports suggest a huge convoy of russian military - convoy of russian military vehicles seen advancing on kyiv is much longer than earlier thought. a desperate scramble

to leave ukraine. the un warns of a growing refugee crisis is