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?

welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. russia is continuing its assault on multiple fronts across ukraine with one of the latest attacks, a missile strike on an army barracks in the southern city of mykolaiv. reports suggest at least 45 ukrainian soldiers were killed. earlier, there was an attack on an aircraft repair plant in relatively unscathed western ukraine, near the city of lviv. there were no casualties. lviv has been receiving hundreds of refugees from mariupol in the south, with many saying russia is trying to wipe the city off the face of the earth. but amid the darkness, the authorities there say 130 people have been rescued from the bomb shelter

under the city's theatre, which was attacked two days ago. here's our special correspondent fergal keane. the sense of security here is ebbing after dawn brought this — a missile strike aimed at an aircraft repair plant. siren wails nobody was hurt, but this close to the city, it's shaken nerves. guards were jittery, journalists shoved. "get your cameras away or i'll break them," a militia man said. people here aren't used to this. the city's mayor reflected the grim mood. translation: there are - no safe and dangerous cities. today, we are all under attack. this shelling was done from the black sea. no—one can predict where the next missiles will fly, so when you hear the sirens, you have to go to the bomb shelter, you have to take care of your health.

and thousands were still arriving here today to escape the war. this, the tunnel leading to their trains west. it's been three weeks exactly since i first stood in this tunnel and watched people queueing to escape the war. still, they come, from mariupol, from kharkiv, from kyiv, from bucha, from kherson, and many other places whose names or deaths we do not know. these are the first arrivals from besieged mariupol — 350 people. this little boy, whose composure is its own statement of determination after the hell he has left behind. a city where killing is piled upon killing. maria was another arrival

from mariupol. 86 years old, bruised from a fall in a bomb shelter. her granddaughter described scenes of horror in the city. translation: there arej dead people lying around and no—one to take them. they just lie there. it shouldn't be like this. someone must intervene. the city's been wiped from the face of the earth. there is nothing alive. all the roads are shelled. there are trees torn out by their roots. it's like a horror film. there are now 200,000 displaced people finding shelter in lviv and today, maria became one of them. the war comes to lviv from everywhere. maria honcharova and her children are from avdiivka in the east.

she's a single mother who lost her leg in an explosion at the start of the conflict eight years ago, and has now had to flee her home for the second time. translation: a new, more brutal shelling has begun. . the civilian population is suffering. there is shelling all around ukraine now. i want to save the lives of my children because we have suffered already. we travelled through the whole of ukraine. there is no safe space anymore. in lviv, they've placed these children's strollers in a central square — one for each child killed so far in this war. 109 young lives gone and more threatened with each passing hour. fergal keane, bbc news, lviv. more than a0 people are believed to have died in a russian missile attack on a ukrainian army barracks in mykolaiv. 0ur chief international correspondent lyse doucet says it's an extremely strategic city

and crucial to russia's plans to control the black sea coast. it's in the south, close to the black sea coast. it has been on the front line for many weeks, some of its neighbourhoods around the edges under incessant russian shelling. but today, an army barracks in the north of the city appears to have taken a direct hit from russian missiles. a ukrainian mp told us dozens were wounded and dozens were killed at a base which was being used to train ukrainian soldiers. and this comes after ukrainian armed forces repelled a major russian advance on mykolaiv, but they will try again. mykolaiv matters to moscow. it stands in the way of the magnificent city of 0desa, ukraine's biggest port, and it is, yes, part of a swathe of land along the south that russia wants to take for a land corridor principally between two areas, crimea and eastern ukraine,

it already controls. that is regarded as the minimum president putin would want to take away from this war. at the other end, mariupol. the city bombarded, besieged, a byword now for human suffering in ukraine. the fighting there has now reached the city centre — a city centre which, it said, no longer exists. it's been smashed to smithereens. the number of civilian deaths in this war continues to rise steadily by the day. the united nations says at least 816 civilians have been killed and 1,333 have been wounded. every part of life has been disrupted and changed across ukraine. jeremy bowen reports. behind their statistics of damage and destruction are addresses like kotelnikova 80 in kyiv. and people like 0lena.

she's here to see what can be salvaged from the wreckage of her daughter's tiny flat in a block that was badly damaged three days ago. "look," she says, "a fragment of a rocket." luckily, everyone was safe in the shelter. and in the kitchen, 0lena says the fridge, the microwave, the extractor — it's all gone. and there's another piece of rocket in the ceiling. even the shopping was burnt. "my daughter and her husband are newly—weds. "we'll get through this." translation: it's bad - very bad- _ the russians are supposed to be our closest people. we never expected they could do this to us. we never wanted the war. the neighbour, mikola, came to fix the door the firefighters kicked in. he's been arguing on the phone with his wife's cousin

in saint petersburg, who he's known for 50 years. translation: he told me, "you've been killing russians. we did nothing. "0ur putin is a king and a god." i told him a person like that should be in a mental hospital. "how could you russians let him be president for so long?" so, isaid, "we should probably end this conversation." in the other burnt flats in kotelnikova 80, more fragmented lives. people who survived the attack but lost everything that was certain. it is obvious that a young family lived here. war is made up of thousands of incidents like this — not even necessarily involving loss of life, but destroying homes, wrecking everything. personal tragedies and afterwards, nothing is ever the same. in the basement of

kyiv maternity hospital no 3, they're doing their best to make it better, but it's hard. a baby born to a surrogate mother was being picked up by a doctor, dressed to protect. "we're strong," said the woman, in ukrainian, who'd carried the baby. her friend, who'd done the same for another couple, agreed in russian. they wanted their identities hidden before travelling back together to the war zones in the east. the doctor took the baby girl, whose parents are german, to a safe place we agreed not to identify. paid surrogacy is legal here, but biological parents have to brave the war zone to reach their new babies. 20 new babies are being looked after in a clean and warm basement. they're waiting for parents who've got to come a long way — brazil and china, as well as from europe. they're short—staffed. the nurses don't get time off.

"we try to love them as if they were ours, "until their mothers and fathers can get here," said antonina. translation: we just l used to teach the parents to look after the babies. now, it's completely different — we take care of them. and they were doing that — loving care for strangers' babies in a war zone. but what a way to begin a life. the doctors in combat gear went out to collect another newborn. jeremy bowen, bbc news, kyiv. vladimir putin has praised russia's unity over what he calls the country's "special operation" in ukraine, and he's thanked russia's military. his comments came in a public speech to a packed stadium in moscow. 0ur russia editor

steve rosenberg reports. "your president needs you," they'd been told, and they came, some with flags and fervour... all chant: russia! ..others with the letter z that's been painted on some russian military vehicles in ukraine. "i'm a patriot," says tatiana. "if our government's fighting in ukraine, "it must be necessary." not everyone, though, was so excited at attending a kremlin rally. well, we've have spoken to quite a few people here who told us they were either forced to come here by their employers or promised the day off if they would come here, but no—one would go on camera. inside the stadium where the world cup final had been four years ago, this time... announcer: vladimir vladimirovich putin! ..it was president putin out in the middle. 0n the anniversary of russia's annexation of crimea, the kremlin leader

gave a patriotic pep talk to his people about events in ukraine. translation: we can see how heroically our soldiers j are acting and fighting in this operation. shoulder to shoulder, they help and support one another. but what happens to russians who call it an unjust war? this. the letter z and offensive graffiti have been sprayed outside apartments of people criticising the russian offensive. journalist anna loiko was among those targeted. this week, she heard her president railing against traitors and pro—western scum. she fears that from now on, anyone disagreeing with the authorities will be treated as an enemy of the state. translation: they see people like me as a worthless part of society. police and mps call us

parasites and freeloaders who are working against the country. and i'm called a traitor, of course, like they wrote on my door, as if i don't want russia to win. but i just don't want our country to be fighting. let's ta ke let's take a look at some of the other latest developments in ukraine. president zelensky has called for comprehensive peace talks with moscow in his latest video message. yes, his usual nightly address, but this time outside. if we can show you it, there are some interesting optics on the day that vladimir putin, as we heard in steve's report, was addressing a rally in moscow. he was focusing, president putin, on the fact that he thinks russian soldiers are heroes fighting fascism in ukraine. but president zelensky said now

is the time to meet, the time to talk. that was his key message, he says, before russian losses are too great. we know that he has addressed the uk, american and german parliaments. he is planning to do it for the swiss, the israelis, the italians and the japanese, he says. he is going to continue that kind of ring of international diplomacy. but he also mentioned that theatre that was bombed, if we can remind you of that with pictures. he says that russia has deliberately bombed this theatre in mariupol. russia denies that. he said hundreds remain trapped underground. 130 survivors have so far been recovered, but not all. after that attack on the maternity hospital and this constant shelling for days, it has been the greatest ordeal in mariupol�*s history. if i just take you to the story of a refugee from mariupol, this is 0ksana. she fled mariupol. when she first fled her house, she just grabbed children's photo albums. they were in a rush to leave their own house

because they felt it was under threat. the house they moved to, where they hid in the basement, was hit six times. then she had to leave her elderly parents there when she went to another shelter with her children. and she was just convinced when the russians were encircling the city that she was inside, and she said they were just trying to make sure that they could all die there. and she said that mariupol, in her words, does not exist anymore. she's now somewhere else in the east of ukraine. it is just so horrendous, and the communications are so difficult with mariupol. we're really relying on people like her who are getting out to tell us about it. let's move closer to home now, and talk about chelsea football club, because the deadline has passed, hasn't it, for the bids. that's right, as part of the ukraine war, oligarchs have been sanctioned, russian oligarchs like roman abramovich, and his asset was frozen, that was chelsea football club. he has had to sell it and at 9:00pm on friday night

uk time was the time to sell it. we had three bidders, the candy bid, the ricketts foundation, and another. there was additional investment from south korea. the ricketts family is the family that owns the us baseball team the chicago cubs, and the consortium includes london 2012 organiser of the olympics lord coe and the former chairman of liverpool football club. but, for chelsea fans, there are some bids expected this weekend, probably about another ten, even though we've passed the official deadline. that's ok, is it? i don't know how it works, but that is ok, and there will be a shortlist next week and that will be decided by going through several tests. but he is not allowed to make any money out of this, is he? he can't make any money out of it, and they've stopped with profits, and there is no merchandise allowed to be sold or tickets. let's show you quickly these pictures. this is the arrival of a russian capsule. this is how the ukraine war is affecting things in space. the russian capsule has a arrived at the international space station.

it's a 20—year shared russian—us presence in orbit. it's avoiding the tensions. the cosmonauts have been welcomed warmly by americans, russians and a german group met. you may have spotted that in the past few days we have seen them in blue shirts, and if we show you these pictures again, we've seen them in blue shirts before. then they were in the white spacesuits, now they are appearing in the yellow suits with blue stripes. some may think that it is the colours of ukraine, and showing solidarity with ukraine. others say it is just perhaps a coincidence. stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: australia's great barrier reef suffers what's called "mass bleaching" for the fourth time in five years. today, we have closed the book on apartheid and that chapter. more than 3,000 subway passengers were affected. nausea, bleeding, headaches and a dimming of vision — all of this caused by an apparently organised attack.

the trophy itself was on the pedestal in the middle of the cabinet here. now, this was an international trophy and we understand now that the search for it has become an international search. above all, this was a triumph for the christian democrats of the west, offering reunification as quickly as possible, and that's what the voters wanted. this is bbc world news. away from ukraine and in the seas off australia, the great barrier reef appears to have been hit once again with widespread bleaching. surveillance flights over the reef reveal damage due to heat stress ranging

from minor to severe. the survey has yet to completed, but it would be the sixth mass bleaching event since 1997. for more on this i'm joined now by richard leck, head of oceans at wwf australia. i know that you haven't finished yet, but tell us what this survey shows so far. thanks, lucy. this is a heartbreaking story. what we are seeing is a really serious event unfolding on the great barrier reef. parts of the reef are under conditions of an underwater heatwave, and we are hearing reports of severe bleaching over an extended area in the central part of the great barrier reef. angus crossed the water cools down over the next few days and weeks and we don't have an official mass bleaching event, but what we have heard now is

really serious, and it is certainly going to extend for a long length of the reef marine park. ~ , ., park. we were 'ust looking at some pictures _ park. we were just looking at some pictures there, - park. we were just looking at some pictures there, and - park. we were just looking at i some pictures there, and what's some pictures there, and what's so striking for anybody that's ever been the great barrier reef is the enormous amount of different colours and the beauty of it, and then you look at the bleaching and it's just this sort of white colour, isn't it? that's what bleaching is, and that's because the water is too warm. just explain. water is too warm. just explain-— water is too warm. just exlain. i. , explain. so when you get these underwater _ explain. so when you get these underwater heatwave _ explain. so when you get these | underwater heatwave conditions that we have now, the corals become incredibly stressed. and that brilliant white colour that brilliant white colour that you see is them suffering that you see is them suffering that extraordinary heat stress. it is called bio fluorescence, and corals can actually recover from that if those temperatures go down quickly. sadly we are already hearing that there has been some coral mortality. we really hope that the temperatures do decline as soon as possible and those reefs to

recover. as you said in your intro, this isjust happening so often. this could be the fourth mass coral bleaching event since 2016. that is more than once every two years, and itjust than once every two years, and it just does than once every two years, and itjust does not give the reefs enough time to recover. so what can be done _ enough time to recover. so what can be done to — enough time to recover. so what can be done to stop _ enough time to recover. so what can be done to stop it? - enough time to recover. so what can be done to stop it? look, . can be done to stop it? look, this is time — can be done to stop it? look, this is time to _ can be done to stop it? look, this is time to change - can be done to stop it? look, this is time to change writ - this is time to change writ large. here in australia, for a long time we have been trying to get the australian government to have a climate change policy consistent with giving the great barrier reef a fighting chance, and unfortunately we don't have that. so we are calling on all national governments to try and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. if we fail in that globally and if we fail in that globally and if we fail in that domestically, this story that domestically, this story that we're seeing with the great barrier reef will become ever more frequent and sadly more severe. i ever more frequent and sadly more severe-— more severe. i suppose the government _ more severe. i suppose the government would - more severe. i suppose the government would stress . more severe. i suppose the i government would stress that more severe. i suppose the - government would stress that it has dedicated billions of dollars to this, but we will keep an for when your report and survey comes back. thank

you very much forjoining us here. ballet stars from around the world are rehearsing for a gala performance in london this weekend. funds from the charity event will be donated to the disasters emergency committee, which is providing aid to people fleeing ukraine. tolu adeoye reports. uniting against war through the arts, royal ballet principal argentinian marianela nunez will be among those performing. former ballet star ukrainian ivan putrov is one of the artistic directors of the show. his mother recently arrived in the uk having escaped from the conflict. it took several attempts and a long time by road and then flying from hungary in the end, so i'm very happy that she's safe and she will be here at the performance. other members of family are still in ukraine. it is difficult — one can't really quite describe. in a way, producing this

in two weeks distracted me from what's happening. the gala is at the london coliseum. 2,500 tickets were sold within 48 hours. the english national opera has waived its usual rental fees. it will also support the events musically. there will be dancers from across the world, including brazil, japan, argentina, france, the uk, as well as russia. we would like to show that russian doesn't equal aggression. russian doesn't equal what's happening now, doesn't mean support for this war. and it should not be thrown away or cancelled. i love my russian friends. romanian ballet star alina cojocaru has co—directed. she trained alongside ivan in kyiv and will be performing at the gala. i hope i'm not going to get too emotional on saturday, but part of us — it's dancing

out there on stage in hope. the message we want to send with this is that though we — dancers, we are musicians, we are human beings, and all we want to do is do the little bit that we can. i choose not to stand by, thinking there's nothing i can do about it, it's overwhelming, i have no power — to say there is something i can do, and i'm doing it right now. let's not think we have no power. tolu adeoye with that report on this weekend's ballet charity gala for ukriane. just before we go, a remarkable story of an escape in the ukrainian city of kharkiv. the university walk a big —— worker became trapped when a building collapsed around him. emergency workers took several hours to free him but amazingly he was able to walk away from the site. translation: the first strike was somewhere further up. i i stood up and heard

that it was not here, and the second strike was above us. it crashed. i fell down and covered my head. i was lucky — the wall fell in a way that did not crush me. hello there. at 17.5 degrees celsius in west sussex on friday, it was the warmest day of the year so far. no surprise, really, because the march sunshine is strengthening and there was barely any cloud to block that sunshine out during the course of friday. it'll be a similar story through the day ahead, and with the high pressure sitting around for the foreseeable, certainly for the weekend and beyond, i suspect we will see higher than 17.5 celsius. fairly brisk wind around,

at least for the first part of the weekend. there may well be one or two showers by sunday. but for the most part, because that high pressure is across the uk, it will stay dry and fine. and as the winds start to weaken into the week, temperatures will rise and it will be really quite warm. it will feel quite warm in that strengthening march sunshine. but a chilly start on saturday and some patchy fog around, so the frost is more likely across northern and eastern areas. not as widespread as friday morning, and the fog won't be, but there will still be pockets around potentially. we've seen some in northern ireland, northern and eastern areas, a few other spots as well. but otherwise it looks like a sunny day on saturday, but a fairly brisk wind. breezier, certainly, than we saw during friday. now, that wind will be strong and gusty, particularly across western areas. but coming in off the north sea, as well, it'll have an effect on temperatures here. so it's also coinciding with some spring tides, so we've got some potential overtopping of the waves, but some strong and gusty winds across the south—west peninsula. but as i say, for many western areas, and the south as well, gusting to 30 or a0 mph. coming in off the north sea at this time of year, many of us see temperatures at their lowest. so that will obviously hold

the temperature right on the coast down at 15 or 16, as we saw friday. but we could actually see 18 in the north highlands with some shelter here from that breeze, so clearly we may get above 17.5 during the day ahead. more likely saturday, i think, than sunday. sunday looks like it'll be slightly cooler. that's because we'll have more cloud, so a colder start as well. more widespread frost sunday morning and more fog around once again, so we've got that to clear. the wind still coming in from the east off that chilly north sea, bringing the risk of some showers and more cloud into southern and eastern areas and more cloud into the west. hence, with more cloud around, it may well be a little cooler than saturday.

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.