the us and the european union have announced a big deal today on natural gas in an attempt to break the russian hold on natural gas in europe. the deal will give the eu an additional 15 billion m3, around 10% of the gas it currently gets from russia, by the end of the year. one big energy provider that says it, too, will increase its gas production to help the world cope with less supplies from russia is canada. its natural resources minister, jonathan wilkinson, spoke to my colleague aaron heslehurst. he began by asking if there was a consensus amongst energy ministers around the world about weaning themselves off russian energy. i think there is a consensus. i think the only differences are around how fast can you actually get away from it. i think everybody is committed to doing that, and many of us are committing trying to help as much as we can in terms of displacing russian oil and gas.

but i there was also a consensus about the need to advance the energy transition and to really focus on driving renewables and hydrogen. let's talk about your country, canada, fourth—biggest oil producer on the planet. so, minister, can you and are you going to, well, help the world to be less dependent on russian energy? we are, and we're going to do that in the short—term and we're also going to try to do that in the long—term. we'll be increasing our production and flow through the pipelines of oil of about 300,000 barrels a day by the end of the year. extra 7 extra, in line with work the americans are also doing and the brazilians have also announced. we're also looking at the potential for a couple of smaller lng facilities on the east coast that might be able to supply some of the demand for natural gas. but it will be in the context of how do you transition to something more sustainable over time? so, any lng facility we would build in canada would need to be capable of converting to hydrogen. it would need to use electric—drive technology so you're not creating domestic emissions that are going to be difficult to

reconcile with your climate agenda. how do you pump out an extra 300,000 barrels when your pipes are full nearly? they're not quite full, and that's the exercise we've gone through with the producers, the pipeline companies and the provinces — we are a federation in canada — to try to identify how much capacity was there. and there's about 300,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent, 200,000 barrels of oil and 100,000 barrels of natural gas, that we believe we can actually flow down to the united states. the united states has the takeaway capacity to be able to take that down to the gulf coast and either export it as crude or refine it and export it as finished product. but let me say that, you know, the long—term answer is not significant increases in oil production. we all know that oil has to go down, consumption has to go down if we're going to meet our climate goals. how quickly can you get this oil out? well, we will be ramping up over the course of the next few months. we expect that, by the end of the year, we will be fully up to the 300,000 barrels.

that was the natural resources minister of canada speaking to us there. the ripple effects of the war in ukraine are being felt across the food industry. britain's biggest dairy company, arla, says the cost of producing milk is increasing like never before. arla is a co—operative with more than 2000 uk dairy farmers. its managing director, ash amirahmadi, is warning that unless its farmers are paid more, milk supplies could be under threat. he's been talking to our business correspondent, emma simpson, who began by asking him about the cost increases being seen. 0n—farm costs have been rising since last summer. feed, fertiliser and fuel. and we've been paying ourfarmers more money to cover that. unfortunately, the cost of farming has increased so much because of the ukraine crisis that the cash flow on farm is negative and farmers, as a result, are producing less milk. are farmers breaking even?

farmers are not making money at the moment, and they're having to make some very important decisions on how much feed they buy, how much fertiliser they buy to grow the feed for the future. how big is this drop in production, then? so, uk dairy farmers have been growing production, producing more for about the last seven or eight years, but in the last six months, that has gone the other a way. in february, farmers produced 2%, less and in march, it's 4% less. so, the direction of travel is going the wrong way. so, what are the implications of that, then? a shortfall of milk? what we need to do is we need to make sure farmers�* costs are covered, but we also need to make sure that we're giving farmers the confidence to invest in continuing to produce milk and avoid any chance of any shortfall of the flow of milk. there could be a chance of a shortfall, then? i think that is exactly what we're trying to avoid and the clear

message that we're giving to our customers. what are you saying here, that supermarkets will have to pay more so that farmers can recover recover their costs? we're working with our customers who have helped us all through the previous resilience challenges and working with them to ensure that we put our arm around our farmers and pay our farmers more to cover their costs to make sure the milk is flowing. a couple of lines coming into us being reported by news agencies but we cannot confirm them but they are saying the ukrainian air force say that russian missiles have targeted its command in the venezia area. reuters is saying missiles have hit several buildings causing significant damage to infrastructure but the consequences are still being assessed there. and afp also saying

that russia has hit the military command centre or a military command centre in central ukraine. we have also been hearing that the russians are going to focus their operations on the east of ukraine. a number of different interpretations to that whether it's russia pulling back a bit or them trying to consolidate into certain areas and separate some of the ukrainian forces off. but i think we can bring you part of an interview from one of the russian military leaders in let's hope that we can display that in it for you. translation: ., in it foryou. translation: ., . , ., translation: the main ob'ectives of the first a . e translation: the main ob'ectives of the first age of— translation: the main ob'ectives of the first age of the h translation: the main objectives of the first age of the operation - translation: the main objectives of the first age of the operation have - the first age of the operation have generally been accomplished. the comic potential of ukraine's armed forces have been considerably reduced which makes it possible i emphasise to focus on core efforts of achieving the main goal, the liberation of donbas. that

of achieving the main goal, the liberation of donbas.— of achieving the main goal, the liberation of donbas. that was a colonel general _ liberation of donbas. that was a colonel general from _ liberation of donbas. that was a colonel general from the - liberation of donbas. that was a | colonel general from the russian ministry of defence. i look at other news from around the world. covid—19 infections are continuing to rise across england, scotland and wales, though there's been a small decrease in northern ireland. new figures from the office for national statistics suggest one in 16 people in england and wales have coronavirus. in scotland, it's as high as one in 11. our medical editor fergus walsh explained more. there's no sign of this covid wave abating yet. last week, it was estimated 11.3 million people almost had covid across the uk. that's up 1 million in one week and a near record number of one and 16 in england and wales, one in 11 in scotland. down slightly in northern ireland, one and 17. now, it's been driven by this more infectious subvariant of omicron, ba.2, plus the lifting

of restrictions, less working from home. so more chances for the virus to spread and infect people. most people will have a mild illness, but the numbers in hospital are going up, too. around 17,000 covid patients now in hospital, although around half or slightly more than half of those will have been admitted with something else. fortunately, the numbers in intensive care remain low. just about 300 covid patients on ventilators. that's testament to treatments, but also to the vaccines, and of course we've got more than 7 million people now eligible for this spring covid booster. the rising covid—19 cases that we are seeing. more breaking news in the last hour as houthi rebels in yemen have launched more drone attacks on saudi arabia. reports

from the city ofjeddah show plumes of black smoke emerging from a site. the saudi air defences claim they have destroyed nine drones. formula 1 is awaiting news as the fire is just 12 miles from the circuit as drivers practice ahead of this weekend's race. president biden is now arriving in warsaw, the polish capital. he hasjust gone into the cart there, that is his team just following on behind them from air force one which was just on the border with ukraine, on the polish side of course. but the us president having made that very significant visit, talking to troops, being met by the polish president, has now gone to warsaw where he understands that further talks will continue. whole and of course has taken the

vast majority of refugees, people fleeing from ukraine. also hearing on that front that the ukrainian president has spoken to the president has spoken to the president of turkey about the results of that nato summit that we have seen and the threat of a food supply crisis was of that has been reported by the news agencies, and we are also seeing reports of the foreign minister of ukraine pushed back at turkish media reports citing president ertl won that there have been progress in talks between ukraine and russia slept really not clear whether the negotiations are making any real progress. but at least there are lines of communication and they are still open. we have also heard reports that the ukrainian air force has suffered a strike but it is not clear the extent of the damage in central ukraine. and eight russian general, russian military leader has said that they are focusing their operations in the east of ukraine at

present. there is much more coming up present. there is much more coming up for un a few minutes and this is bbc news. thanks for being with us. hello there. the weather story's certainly been dominated by the beautiful spring sunshine and warmth just lately, hasn't it? but all that is set to change over the next few days. i've taken york as an example, but we are going to start to see the temperature trend from above average temperatures to below average temperatures for the time of year through the middle part of the week. so, you really will notice the difference. hopefully you can get out and enjoy the spring sunshine over the weekend. there'll be plenty of it on saturday. as you can see, some of us will see sunshine from dawn till dusk, with some thicker cloud in the far north of scotland, maybe the odd spot or two of light rain into the northern isles. there will be a little bit more of a brisk breeze, particularly running down through channel coasts, but also coming in off the north sea. so, here, those temperatures may be a little bit subdued in comparison to the last few days.

sheltered western areas will see the best of the warmth, highs of 18 degrees. and don't forget, when you're off to bed saturday night into the early hours of sunday morning, we put the clocks forward. yes, it's the start of british summer time on sunday. so, we lose an hour in bed, but hopefully we'll gain some daylight hours. as you can see, the high pressure is still with us. there could be a little bit of stubborn cloud drifting in off the north sea, though, on sunday, and that could be a bit of a nuisance across england and wales. a level of uncertainty how far west that cloud is going to feed in, but it could just suppress the temperatures a little bit here. so, the best of any warmth and sunshine is likely to be further west. underneath that cloud, we're likely to see temperatures down a degree or so in comparison to of late. but the high pressure still stays with us. we have got this little front on monday starting to move in from the far north—east, and that's just going to enhance the risk of some showers. so, first thing on monday, there's perhaps a greater chance of seeing more low cloud, some stubborn mist

and fog in the morning. a few showers across north wales and northern england as well. to the north of that, it's going to start to turn a little bit cooler, 6—11 degrees. to the south of that, with some sunshine, we still keep some warmth. but the trend for this cooler feel arrives really from tuesday onwards as the wind direction changes and it drives that colder air a little bit further south. so, as you can see, from tuesday into wednesday, starting to get noticeably cooler with some outbreaks of rain at times. take care.

today at 6: russia signals a shift in military strategy to the east of ukraine, as ukrainian troops counterattack around the capital, kyiv. with fierce fighting on the front lines, we report on the toll it's taking. and ukrainian troops have been able to achieve this against a much larger army, to achieve this against a much largerarmy, more to achieve this against a much larger army, more powerful army, and in place now they are notjust resisting. they are mounting a counterattack. fears of starvation in the beseiged city of mariupol as hundreds queue for food and water. president biden visits poland to show support for ukraine's neighbour, and announces a deal on gas to reduce european reliance on russian energy.

and the other main stories on the programme...