this is bbc news. the headlines: russia has intensified its attacks across ukraine. this was the result of an air strike near the city of lviv. in the southern city of mykolaiv, dozens of people have been killed in a russian missile strike on an army base. fighting has reached the centre of the southern port city of mariupol both sides have confirmed. many civilians are still trapped in the city with more than 80% of residential buildings either damaged or destroyed. vladimir putin has praised russia's "unity" over what he calls the country's "special operation" in ukraine, and he thanked russia's military. his comments came in a public speech to a packed stadium in moscow. some students and public workers said they'd been pressured into turning

up to the rally. now on bbc news, it's time for newscast. so, hello. there is usually three of us, aren't there, on the podcast on a thursday. and today, just me. because laura's been gallivanting around the middle east. and adam has covid, as you'll have heard if you were listening to newscast on bbc sounds yesterday. so, we have dr ellie cannon, gp, with us. hello. hi, there. to talk about covid. because, i guess, because of what has been happening in ukraine, it's not been making as much news as it otherwise might have done. i've got plenty of questions, but i can start from a question from adam, who has sent us a little video from his

self—isolation at home. hello, doctor. when i got covid this week, i hardly had a cough, i didn't have a temperature and my sense of taste and smell stayed exactly the same. so, my question is — do you think the classic symptoms are still the classic symptoms? and could that be a problem if they're not? is covid changing? absolutely. i mean, that experience isjust what i'm hearing in practice. people are not losing their sense of taste, their sense of smell. people are having mild upper respiratory tract symptoms, exactly as we've just heard. sore throat, in other words? yeah, basically. sore throat, runny nose, tiredness. very few people even having a temperature now. even the cough. i mean, i had covid two or three weeks ago myself. i don't really think i coughed. wow. right. so, plenty to talk about. more from you in a few minutes. we are going to talk about covid, lots of other things to talk about as well. welcome to newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc.

yes, it is chris here on my lonesome today with newscast. not only is the pandemic not really in the news much now, but all of the things we have been keeping an eye out for the last two years, or a lot of them, i'm not actually the symptoms anymore, which is usually significant in terms of people asking themselves the question, have i got over? we had a fantastic vaccination programme. the rules of dealing with omicron, even his current wave we are seeing at the moment, the type of omicron, and we know omicron thankfully is a mild variant. but if covid is booming again, maybe being a bit more cautious is sensible? something i've seen so much

in the last two years, working in general practice, is there's policy and there's individual behaviour. and, at the end of the day, if you are not taking the people with you and the mask mandates aren't strong enough for everybody to do it, or whatever the mandates are, there's no value in the policy. of course not. but is it not the case that the laws around covid, however irritating they may have been for lots of people, broadly speaking, people stuck to them. even if they just thought they were a good citizen and they should obey the law, even if they hated wearing a face mask. so, in that sense, laws did change behaviour, didn't they? law certainly did change behaviour, absolutely. policy did change behaviour. but there were absolutely certain sections of society where behaviour wasn't changed. so, i work with a very vulnerable, impoverished community. for example, testing was not particularly commonplace. it was clunky, it was annoying, people didn't want to have to book a test. they didn't necessarily want their covid recorded. they didn't want to have to isolate from work,

if they can't afford to isolate from work. so, the policy only goes so far to change behaviour. how long, then, do you think you're going to be seeing the consequences, in their many ways, of the pandemic? turning up on your surgery, or turning up in your virtual screen when you're talking to patients, whether it be other diseases that weren't diagnosed, mental health conditions as a result of the last two years? i would guess a decade, if not two. i look after refugees in my practice who are traumatised from experiences that they've had in the �*90s, in the �*80s, and the effects of that trauma — it's a very different type of trauma — last for decades. and i think if you look at the public health of the nation after the second world war and after other big events like that, you see that it lasts. and some of the illnesses that people will have developed as a result of restrictions, whether that is things like eating disorders

or heart disease, cancer, obviously the physical ramifications of that are going to be lifelong. final thought, then — what is your health advice to patients now, as far as dealing with the covid threat, such as it is, in an environment where the regulations imposed from above are much more liberal than they were, but where there is a lot of it about, covid? i think you have to take an individualised approach. so, for example... what does that mean, though? what that means is i have had three vaccinations, i also had covid two or three weeks ago, so i am very unlikely now to get covid sitting here with you, or going home on public transport, so i can afford to be a little bit lax. i'm not seeing anybody at risk. but people who are at risk, who haven't had covid, who maybe aren't vaccinated, they do need to be more careful. is it a problem wearing masks in a shop or on public transport? i don't really think so. i think that's a small price to pay. i wear a mask still

every day at work. all our patients do. so i think there are behaviours that we can all take that really have very little impact on our life, compared to something like shutting schools or making children wear masks, which we can do to minimise our risks. thank you, ellie. nice to see you. you too. next, we need to get an update on everything in ukraine, what's been happening over the last 2a hours or so. vitaly shevchenko, russia editor at bbc monitoring is here. hello. hi. you have been doing your daily thing, brilliant thing, and our sister podcast ukrainecast with gabriel and victoria. thanks for sparing some time for newscast. horrible event in the last 2a hours in mariupol, and this attack on the theatre. what do we actually know for certain about what's happened ? all they know for sure is that there were people inside, and then that building blew up, exploded. from this moment on, this point on,

there are different versions. the ukrainians say that the theatre was attacked by russians. the russians say no, it was the ukrainians who actually blew the building up. now, we — to find out what is happening, a bit of history might help. the russian military, russian officials have been applying this tactic for years in conflicts like syria, for example. where indications are that russian planes also targeted schools, bakeries, hospitals, and then said, well, actually, it wasn't a school or a bakery, it was a military base. however, in many of those cases, and in the case of mariupol, we've not seen any evidence to support claims that it was occupied

by any militants. on the contrary — we've seen video clips posted online before the attack showing scores of people, maybe hundreds of people inside the building sheltering. and also, images emerged, satellite images emerged after the attack, showing the words 'children' in big, white letters. so, explicitly spelt out, so it could be visible from the air, that this was somewhere that shouldn't reasonably be attacked? this is what residents of mariupol have been doing for weeks. i have also seen cars that they have been using to get out of mariupol with the word 'children' in russian, taped onto the side of the cars, to let the military know it's civilians, it's children. that didn't stop those cars from being attacked either, riddled with bullets, windscreen smashed in, local officials say, despite promises of safe passage, that didn't happen.

they were shelled on the way out of mariupol. vitaly, what's so difficult for you, journalistically, covering this, is that this isn't just an extraordinary and horrific news story for you to report on and reflect on, but a human one that's affecting your family. you've been sharing your family's story on ukrainecast. bring us up to date about your mum and your aunt? yes, we are from eastern ukraine, originally. my mother and her disabled sister were in an eastern city until this morning. because of my aunt's disability, we thought it's going to be all but impossible to evacuate them. but as the fighting got nearer, my mother said, "look, i can see and hear the fighting from my balcony. "we need to do something about it."

and we, thankfully, had been able to find a volunteer in an old, small ambulance, who evacuates disabled patients from the east and takes them all the way to the west. it's a very arduous and difficultjourney, but they had to take it. as we was preparing for that journey, i was on the phone to my mother last night. there was a feeling of us leaving our family home. this is where i grew up. and then the sirens went off and it was very emotional. but that's something that really had to be done to save lives. and where are they now? they are outside... well, they are in central ukraine, basically. the latest i've heard is that they are preparing to find a place to stop, because there's a curfew, they can't move on. and we are hoping that

they will be in lviv, in the western part of ukraine, tomorrow morning. and from there, will they stay there or are they going to try to leave the country entirely? there's a hospital that said they will be able to accommodate my aunt. but who knows what is going to happen to lviv. it wasa — a ukrainian military base outside lviv was bombed by russians over the weekend. so, there's no area that's completely safe. but our objective at the moment is to get them to safety now. ijust wonder, vitaly, finally, how are you are, how you're coping? you're caught up, as i say, telling the story of your homeland, which is dominating your professional thoughts. it's also dominating your personal ones as well. how are you? surviving. — ican't say i'm well, even. but the thing that helps me cope is doing interviews like this, because watching all this horror unfolding in your home country,

in the village that you grew up in, you can't just watch all that and not want to do something about it. and this is me trying to do something about it. telling the world what i know, because i have several perspectives on things as a professional, and also as a local. that's just my way of coping. we wish you the best, thank you. thanks for coming on newscast and well done with everything you're doing on ukrainecast, and best wishes to you and your family. thank you. our big conversation on the podcast today is with lord frost. welcome. great to be here, thank you. one of the big voices of the brexit conversation of the last few years. i guess, you know, alongside the prime minister, one of the most influential actors in the whole process as far as the uk getting a brexit deal in the end. so much to talk to you about, we've wanted to get

you on the podcast for ages. take us back to when you were in government, invited into government, alongside borisjohnson, in the heart of the brexit process. you had something of a reputation, which may or may not be fair, and you can address this if you like, of being something of a bruiser. the prime minister has his reputation about being something of a jovial and jokey figure and i'm imagining how you are with him behind the scenes in those moments and at those moments of hugejeopardy, when no—one quite knew what was going to happen, whether brexit was going to happen? yeah, so, i think one of the big advantages we had was that the prime minister and i always agreed on brexit. always? on the big principle? on the big principle and how we were going to do it, it was always clear, and we almost didn't need to talk about it that much, because we both understood each other very well. we understood what the principles we were trying to put in place were, and we just sort of got on with it and that's how it worked.

and we had to deal with the consequences of this unsatisfactory deal that had been put in place, so my memory of this whole period isjust 18 months of extreme tension, pressure, trying to get things done, trying to deliver on what we knew needed to be done, which was respect the opinion of the people and get brexit done. how is brexit going? i think it's going well. we've created a form of brexit, hard brexit, some people say, though i don't really like the term, which gives the country complete freedom as to what to do next. we are not in the customs union, we are not in the single market, we are now masters of our own destiny. we've got to make the changes to our regulatory setup, to our competitiveness, to our productivity that's going to enable us to succeed. whilst we're talking brexit, my old mucker adam fleming who spent what felt like his entire life at the time talking about brexit over in brussels

when you were at the heart of government, not here on the podcast in the room because of having covid, but he has sent us a question. take a listen to this. hello, lord frost. haven't seen you in ages and i'm still not seeing you, but never mind. in your speech in zurich this week, you said there should be a new relationship between the uk and the eu on defence, security and foreign policy. ijust wondered, do you think the uk blew the chance to have that in the negotiations with michel barnier? because he was desperate for some kind of deal on foreign policy and security, and i seem to remember you guys just ruling that out totally from the start. lord frost? so the only thing that was on offer in 2020 and was in the eu's draft treaty was a sort of full dress treaty uk—eu summit substructure, all that kind of thing — lots of bureaucracy, lots of process. and we didn't think that was the right thing.

we thought something more open, capable of evolving, was better. but unfortunately, that wasn't on offer. i think now we've got to try and move on from some of the bitterness of the last couple of years. i hope we can, and perhaps the ukraine thing reminds us of everything that we have in common. but i think we can only move on some things if the eu moves on other things. and i can imagine that we could look again at some of the foreign policy issues and maybe other things, if we could find a better settlement on the protocol. and at the moment, that doesn't seem to be on offer, but perhaps the eu will change its mind in the months to come. you gave a speech the other night over in switzerland, at the university of zurich, talking about brexit but talking about lots of other things as well, and we'll come onto plenty of other things in the next few minutes. and you talked about how it's important not to get mesmerised by the immediate problem in any scenario in life, not just necessarily in politics. and you observed that many observers still cannot see

beyond the immediate economic costs of brexit as opposed to the broader case for it, as you see it. how significant do you think those economic costs are right now, and how soon will they go away? so there is a cost from leaving the customs union and the single market. it's not as big as people have said. all the estimates of the costs of brexit economically have been proven to be wrong so far. all the disaster scenarios didn't come into play... but you acknowledge there's been problems? i don't acknowledge there's been problems. i acknowledge that there's a cost from changing from one system, the eu system, to another. that is a problem, though, if it's your cost, isn't it? but i believe the medium—term benefits will outweigh that. and i think, if you look around the world, historically and now, the most successful countries are national democracies that are free to choose their own way forwards, and i believe that's what we now have, and i think the gains of that outweigh any short—term difficulties that we might have.

let's talk about the huge issue of our time, ukraine and russia, and how the west responds. you said — i'm going back to your speech the other night in switzerland — if you're spending all your time worrying about climate change, you might have fewer resources left to deal with russia. is it an either/or? it's not entirely an either/or but the reality is that governments prioritise some things over others. and i think my concern is that, over the last decade, maybe longer — this is not a party political point — western countries had got in the habit of seeing diplomacy as a kind of performance, worrying about global issues, worrying about appearing good on the world stage and not thinking about fundamentals like security, energy security, defence, and thinking that those sort of things wouldn't be problems in future. and, all of a sudden, they turned out to be problems. i think, to be fair to this

government, we've been warning about this for some time. but now we've got to pay the price of that and, unfortunately, luxury goods like... saving the planet? climate change is a problem. it's possibly not the biggest immediate problem we face. the immediate problem is having an energy system that keeps the lights on and that people can afford. isn't it more, though, for a lot of people than feeling good, as you describe it — dealing with climate change? even though it might be a long—term problem, there are plenty of people and the overwhelming consensus amongst climate scientists is that this is a huge, albeit medium to longer term, issue, with some short—term consequences, that has to be addressed now? yes, i don't disagree with that. i think it obviously makes sense to take the carbon out of the energy system if you can and to move to renewables if you can. the problem is that i think we're rushing at it. we're moving too fast to renewables that can't supply power in the short run. i think you have to rely on gas

and, after a short period, nuclear, when we can gear up to it. i don't think wind power can do the job in the short run. so i think, by rushing at it, we're producing a system that doesn't deliver security of supply and is getting more and more expensive for everyone, and that's what's on everyone�*s mind at the moment. what i'm struck by, though, is your critique of emphasis within government but then also some of your language around some of these issues. so a couple of months ago you were tweeting about an article that allister heath had written in the telegraph in which he had used, and you used these words as well so i assume you broadly agree with them, talking about the "neo—socialists, the green fanatics and the pro—woke crowd in downing street or in the broader government," and that there needed to be something of a clear—out. i'm just wondering what you mean by those three labels? who are these people? well, i'm not going to sort of name individuals, and actually i didn't have particular individuals in mind

when i mentioned it, when i tweeted it. but i do think there is a trend of high high—spend or not thinking about spending control, of rushing at climate change measures when the energy system isn't ready to do it and not always being as robust as we could be. and, you know, standing up for our own history and so on. and that needs to change, i think. but who are the neo—socialists, the green fanatics and the pro—woke crowd ? are they people in government, in ministerial office, or are they civil servants? who are they? i think i was getting more at a kind of climate of thought, maybe, than individuals. we are not... we're taking the easy solutions too quickly, we are not thinking about how we control spending, we are just thinking we can just add to the spending

burden. we're not thinking about whether we can hold down taxation, we'rejust allowing it to go up. we're not thinking about how we have an energy system that keeps the lights on in the short run. and i think all of this is a habit of easy times, when these things seemed possible, and now we've had covid, we've got ukraine, everything looks a lot more difficult. we've just got to get serious about this now. is borisjohnson governing as a conservative? so...yes, i would say, up to a point. ithink, you know... you didn't say that with much conviction. the genius of the conservative party has been to bring together economic liberals, neoliberals if you like, free marketeers, with people who stand up for the country and what the country means, values of freedom, standing upfor things in the world. and he is spending big time and taxing big time. i think that's the problem. i don't think it's necessarily what he wants to do, but i think, as i say,

there's a habit of thought which means that we take the easy path the whole time, and that doesn't lead you to a good place. has governing meant that he has sort of lost the knack of conservatism? i don't know — you seem to be implying almost that he's gone native within the system. i think the system puts a huge amount of pressure on people, and there is a certain conventional wisdom within government, within the civil service, within politics, probably, which — you know, it has been about avoiding hard decisions in recent years. and it's always easiest to avoid hard decisions, but sometimes you've got to take them. what you mean by avoiding hard decisions? carrying on spending rather than cutting back on spending? carry on spending. i think the tax burden is too high, it needs to come down. that needs to be used as a way of controlling spending.

we have been, as i say, too relaxed about having an energy system that produces security of supply... the thing is, though, borisjohnson is prime minister, isn't he? i mean, he could do something about this. is hejust being weak, then? i'm trying to understand. you're talking about this sort of capturing in the system, if you like. why isn't borisjohnson just gripping this and, as you would like to see it, being more conservative? so i think we've had the pandemic for the last two yea rs. that's been a huge distraction, and i think we've reached the right point on handling covid now, and again, we are the freest country in many ways. but i think you do need a machinery that makes it work, and i agree with those who say the current machinery of government is a bit dysfunctional. it doesn't always offer all the pros and cons in different circumstances. it doesn't offer necessarily all the choices and, when levers are pulled by the prime minister or anybody else, they don't always connect to something. i think we've seen a lot of that over the last couple of years,

and we may well see some more of it if we don't, you know, try and change that. not even reading between the lines, just listening to you, you sound like you think borisjohnson�*s lost his way. i don't think he's lost his way. i think the government is — has been risking drifting and not taking the difficult decisions. now, i think some of the things that have happened... risking drifting, or drifting? i think risking drifting because, in the end, we came to the right point on covid. we've got the prospect of an energy security paper coming out which may get us back on the right track again. i've no idea what debate�*s going on internally on tax and spend, but it's certainly aliver than it was six months ago when the national insurance increase was agreed. and i hope that, you know, slowly slowly, the supertanker is turning

around a bit and we're getting closer to where supporters want us to be. thank you, nice to talk to you. thanks so much for coming on newscast. that's all from newscast for this week. adam and laura will hopefully be back alongside me next week and we will talk to you then. and plenty more newscast, of course, on bbc sounds every day. newscast from the bbc. hello there. there will be a few pockets of fog around this morning. not as widespread as yesterday morning in the frost won't be as well, but still a fairly chilly start. otherwise plenty of sunshine, i think, start. otherwise plenty of sunshine, ithink, once start. otherwise plenty of sunshine, i think, once again through the day. a bit more breeze picking up compared with yesterday, so quite strong and gusty for western and southern coast in particular, and coming in of the cold north sea, it

will temper the field for the east coast. so a breezy day but plenty of sunshine still, and temperatures will not up to 14 or 15 degrees. but we could see 18, potentially, in the north—west highlands. now, the high pressure bringing the settled weather will continue throughout the weekend, but coming in from the east, that breeze, as i say, will make things feel a little on the telly site and actually may bring a slight chance of showers into eastern areas. but i think more widely a bit of frost sunday morning and a bit more fog around as well. but because of the risk of showers in eastern areas, a bit more cloud in the west, i think a slightly cooler on the whole.

welcome to bbc news. i'm lucy grey. our top stories: russia intensifies its attacks across ukraine on multiple fronts. this is the result of an air strike near the city of lviv. those reaching safety, escaping the besieged city of mariupol, have endured weeks of russian shelling. translation: there are dead people lying around _ and no—one to take them. they just lie there. it should not be like this. someone must intervene. at a rally in moscow, vladimir putin praises what he calls "russia's heroic deeds" in ukraine. solidarity in space: three russian cosmonauts have arrived at the international space station, but are they wearing the colours of ukraine?