this is bbc news. finds: russian forces have continued their offences in ukraine. a bbc correspondence is a steady stream of people have been fleeing the area on foot taking only what they can carry with them to try to find safety. president zelinsky has told members of the us congress that ukraine desperately needs russian—made fighterjets which russian—made fighter jets which is russian—made fighterjets which is pilots know how to fly. he repeated his urgent wish for a no—fly zone for russian forces, something that the nato military alliance has rejected. the payment giants visa and mastercard are suspending services in russia. mastercard says it will not support cards issued by russian banks and thoseissued issued by russian banks and those issued outside the country will not work at russian atms.

now it is time for hard talk. welcome. i am stephen sachar. russians and ukrainians know each other intimately thanks to history, language, culture. now, they are 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 was born in russia and writes in russian but is a ukrainian citizen and fears putting citizen. can ukraine survive russia's effort to undermine its neighbourhood?

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 there anymore, 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 st sophia cathedral, from the 12th century. 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 the last borscht in kyiv. it turned out, for now, indeed, last borscht in kyiv. now, 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 to join territorial defence, or any kind of organisation that is helping the ukrainian army. do you believe the russians, 0k, and 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, 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 ukraine...

ah, yes, 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 or 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% and 15% of russian speakers who always vote for the pro—russian political parties, and they're always organised and we understand who finances them.

but there is 10%, 15% of the population which is either nostalgic about soviet youth or soviet times orjust considers that their origin, russian origin, is enough reason to love putin and to be loyal to russia, secretly or openly. 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, if you... i know you kyiv very well, and kyiv was... when i was a young man, 99% of people were speaking russian. now there are probably 60% or 70% of people in kyiv

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...| don't know...sphere of russophones. of course 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 the 16th, 17th century, ukraine was independent territory practically ruled by the military chefs of cossacks elected in open elections by cossacks

themselves, together with the higher offices. there was diplomatic service. they were corresponding. . . correspondence with hungarian tsar, with turkish sultan. 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 mindset, 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 europe 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 nostalgic in crimea about times because there is 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, 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 is 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 a ukrainian writer, so you have to change the language. i did write a couple of non—fiction books in ukrainian and a couple of children's books in ukrainian, but, i mean, russian language as 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 trans—carpathian region. we have crimean writers. yes, 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 expressed concern about that, and i just wonder whether you think it was a mistake to do that? some of the decisions were definitely mistaken, but 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 the �*90s as a political instrument.

so, i mean, if you are a russian speaker, are considered by russia, by putin, by his entourage, you are considered belonging to russian world, this humanitarian project that was started by russian orthodox church and 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. that is his notion of neofascists, extremists and dangerous far right elements woven into ukraine's politics and military. now, i mean there is no doubt that very far 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? he has addressed it. actually, no extreme right groups or political factions have made it into parliament. so even moderate nationalists didn't make it into parliament. so you don't have these people, either in the government or in the parliament, you have some extreme right politicians and regions,

in our three regional councils. but they are not influential at all. and the azov, the so—called azov militiamen who we sometimes see parading in kyiv and who we can only assume, now, some of them might well be on the front lines. how do you feel about them? again, they express an extreme far right ideology. well, you know, they are coming from football fans, at least half of these people. and they are coming not from western ukraine but originally from the south—east, and this is a phenomenon i don't understand until today, but we are talking about several hundred people in the country of 40 million. it is not a very large, very accessible movement. i mean, you can notice them on special historical days, like the birthday of stepan bandera, who was one of the leaders of ukrainian nationalism when western ukraine belongs to poland. i imagine, mr kurkov, right now where you are, living in temporary accommodation in western ukraine, so many of us, you are watching the tv and seeing the truly horrifying scenes of attacks on ukrainian cities, most recently kharkiv which has been hit by multiple rocket attacks, civilians

are being killed, we know that. what is this doing to ukrainian society right now? well, it is a very stressful time, and what is happening, society once again, like in euromaidan got consolidated against a common enemy. so people from different political groups, 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 the territorial defence because they have more than enough for now. 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 it is difficult to fight on the front line which is 3000 kilometres long and at the same time defend big cities from the russian forces. but i hope we will withstand.

long and at the same time defend big cities from the russian forces. but i hope we will withstand. indeed, i am very interested in the political culture, because in your writing you have addressed some of the problems, some of the chaos that we have seen in ukraine's journey towards 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're trying hard. i was surprised by volodymyr zelensky and i'm surprised by the minister of defence, who is not a professional officer or a 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 am afraid to say that... i mean, this war can become finally the best university for ukrainian statehood and for ukrainian statesmen. because 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, because again, on the eve of war, you are saying many people in ukraine are disappointed by zelensky�*s unfulfilled promises. 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. there may be different reasons, but obviously he is behaving in the very, very right way for the president in such a situation. at some point i thought that zelensky�*s idea and attitude is correct, but he is not strong enough. 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 protection of ukrainian society. so, i am one of his critics, and i stopped criticising him. right. now, you are a writer, not a fighter, but do you believe that there are things that the artistic

community, the wielders of, if i can put it this way, soft power rather than military power, that there are things they can do to contribute right now? you know, i am thinking, we have seen decisions taken in the arts world, 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 the ukrainian arts centre, say that we are organised and also different translations of the pieces of information about daily actuality, situation in ukraine, the foreign journalists, 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, russian

language, how much do you think they, 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. lots of people in the russian artistic world are supporting putin and they approve of this war. i mean, like the very famous singer baskov and some mariinsky theatre actors, etc. so i don't think it does influence a majority of artists, but what is making them upset is 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, that is what upsets russians now, and actually, i saw 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 russians, 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 a big european country.

but i'm sure 100% that it 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, probably i will have to take my family out. andrey kurkov, we thank you very much indeed forjoining us on hardtalk. thank you. hello — it is cold and frosty across the northern half of the uk where we have clearer skies and light winds. sunday morning starts off on that chilly note, but some sunshine on offer for most of the day. the lowest temperatures will be across rural scotland, perhaps as low as —8 during the early hours of sunday morning.

further south we have more cloud across england and wales producing some spots of drizzle through the morning. cloud should tend to break up with more sunshine for many areas compared to what we saw on saturday. perhaps a bit more cloud for south—western england and into wales as well. further north, like winds and lots of sunshine on offer back towards southern england and wales, a breeze coming in from the north—east and that will take the edge off the temperatures. not particularly warm with high of between 7—9 celsius but with the light winds and the sunshine it should be a fairly pleasant day across the north. on sunday night and on into monday morning, cloud still towards the south and south—west, tending to fade so under those clearer skies with light winds, the frost will be even more extensive as we head in to monday morning. that is not quite as low, those temperatures, but many of us seeing a touch of frost to start monday morning. monday, largely dry with spells of sunshine, always a bit more cloud across england and wales, just drifting northwards

into northern ireland and southern scotland but it will be well broken, so some sunny spells but still chilly at around 7—9 celsius. looking further ahead, high pressure will ease towards the east overnight into tuesday, allowing that to work in from the rest and as it does, the breeze will be picking up on tuesday from a south—easterly direction and we are likely to see some showers arriving across south—west england and wales and northern ireland later in the day. warmer by this stage, around 7—11, the top temperature on tuesday. midweek and it looks as though low pressure will try to move in from the atlantic as high pressure slips away the east. that will mean a bit more cloud and rain at times but milder air working in, so a bit of a chilly start to the new working week. it looks like things will turn a bit more unsettled, but also milder for midweek. goodbye for now.

welcome to bbc news — i'm james reynolds. our top stories. as more people flee the bombings and missile strikes a former ukrainian president tells the bbc his country is desperate. you see all these people are suffering from death and this is completely unacceptable and when we are asking the no—fly zone, this is exactly for these people. israel's prime minister meets with president putin in moscow to discuss the ongoing conflict. the economic fallout from the war continues — visa and mastercard announce they're disconnecting their services in russia. solidarity in the streets — and in the football stands — thousands continue to show support for the people