this is bbc world news, the headlines: more russian shelling of ukrainian targets — this is the scene in the western city of lviv after explosions were heard there. president biden — who's in poland for talks on russia's invasion of ukraine — says ignoring the crisis would come back to bite the us. earlier, he held his first face—to—face meeting with ukrainian government ministers since start of the war. the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky, has urged russia to engage in serious peace talks. he claimed more than 16,000 russian troops had been killed, including senior officers.

a ferry operated by p&0 has been held in northern ireland because of fears about staff training. the uk transport secretary, grant shapps, said the maritime and coastguard agency deemed the european causeway "unfit to sail". now it's time for this week's dateline london. hello, and welcome. i'm shaun ley, and this is the programme which brings together leading columnists from the uk with foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast to the folks back home from the dateline london. here in the studio are isabel hilton, founder of china dialogue and a columnist

in british newspapers. jeff mcallister is a trained lawyer and former white house correspondent and head of time magazine's london bureau. vera krichevskaya is a documentary film—maker whose independent tv station in russia has been taken off the air. welcome to you all. to have you with this week. it's ukrainians who are bearing the agonies of war, and russians — if sanctions are effective — who will pay the price. yet each and every finance minister across the industrialised world is having to factor in the economic impact of war. the latest is the chancellor of the exchequer, rishi sunak. a cut in the tax on fuel for vehicles and accelerating the move to a higher threshold before a tax on workers kicks in couldn't disguise the bigger picture — household incomes have fallen by the largest amount since the 1950s. rising inflation, slower growth and a warning from mr sunak that "the economy and public finances to worsen — potentially significantly". one of the factors in that is the war and how it progresses.

we've had this deal announced at the summit in brussels on thursday by president biden that will help the europeans out with supplies of liquid natural gas. a nice thing, a welcome thing, an encouraging sign, but it will not amount to much given the scale of the challenge that europe is facing. you are right. 15 million tonnes is about 10% of germany's use. now the germans themselves have announced in the last day that they are going to try to take their natural gas use down 90% by 2024 and cut their oil and their coal use considerably in the next year and a half. so that sounds great. the difficulty with liquid natural gas is that it's not so much the production of it, but it's the supplies. it's easy to get out of the ground but you have to reduce it to liquid form and have to transport it and then have to get it back

into the form that it needs to use for combustion. and that infrastructure cannot be wished into existence. they are only 600 ships that can carry it now around the world and you can see that industrial countries that need it badly may compete and the price may go up. so it's all a great idea, but i think it's actually a serious effort and it also shows i think the russians that whatever happens in the way this war comes to an end, if it does, that their long—term plan to have europe dependent upon them for energy is no longer going to be able to work out. nordstream 2 was turned off, the europeans are worried that they have hocked their future to russia and russia can sell it to china or india and lots of other places assuming the sanctions don't bite. but this is definitely russia's major way of earning money and it's a change in politics as well as economics. and it's one thing to divert the supplies to europe,

but as jeff was implying, that will only drive up costs. the fact is energy is going to continue to be very expensive. it is, and actually it's true that russia can sell oil, gas and coal essentially, that's what it does sell to china. but it is not an easy switch either. it sells far more to europe and if you think about it in a way where russia's sources are, it's a very long way to china. they are neighbours, but there is a hell of a lot of tundra in between, and the economically active bits of both china and russia are very distant. and gazprom cannot build pipelines to china and make profit without massive subsidies and tax breaks. so china has signed a deal to take more russian gas, it's not something you can ramp up very quickly because they are confined to a pipeline from siberia which has a limited source.

and the liquid natural gas is much easier from central asia. they will get the oil cheaper now because russian oil is trading at a massive discount on brent crude, so china will take some of the slack but it will not take up all of it. and given that russia's major only export is fossil fuels, i think the long—term picture is pretty bleak. the impact of sanctions on russians, what reaction have you picked up from russians about them? there are different russias, and last three or four days, | i was watching a remote, distanced television - station from remote areas, l not moscow because moscow and the rest of russia - are two different planets. so what i saw there is russians are united around sanctions - and by sanctions and i heard

the narrative via russians, l "we know how to endure difficulties, we will survive" and they blame - the west, they blame - the united states of course. so they accept the kremlin narrative... of course, of course, and they think that it's very short—term. _ they think as soon war ends, all sanctions will be lifted. i so, it sounds like maybe a month or so they have to be strong. - that's the average reaction from average people. - and that raises an interesting question. what would lead the west to lift the sanctions? it may not be enough for the fighting to end in ukraine presumably? i think this is a very tough question. if you look at the principles

for which the war is being fought, territorial integrity of a nation—state, it does not leave very much room for negotiation. now the russians said yesterday that perhaps the first phase of their campaign is over, which is perhaps a sign that they are recognising it's been going badly and they are now going to be willing to retreat just to take the donbas, but i cannot imagine how that will be acceptable for zelensky or the ukrainians as 80% of ukrainians said they would not accept that even if it meant instant peace. so then we are stuck in a position where things are still not clear, i think the sanctions will have to absolutely endure because there are so many more important long lessons and i don't know how you turn them off. it's very unclear to me. it's difficult because the russians will say we are offering you peace, but you have to lift the sanctions. do you want peace or not?

and that is exactly the dilemma, and i think that is when the difficulties are going to set in for the western alliance because it is over the negotiations that people start to fall out. but i agree that it's very hard for zelensky to take anything like that. by rights, it should be a russian retreat and reparations for all the damage they've done to them. but how one gets to that position without actually defeating russia mightily, i can't imagine. you made a good point about knowledge and information and it's often said that in war, truth is the first casualty. what version of truth are russians being given at the moment and why is it not possible to provide alternative sources of information? first of all, now that we've got - some trusted data in polls that show us that about 58 or 59% people i support the war and support putin and the core audience is 60—plus. so people who watch

state tv in general. people who watch state tv. they have no idea what is going on, and they don't have any _ demand to search for any news and information. i this is a problem. russia is quite an old society as europeans, so we have i lots of people who are 50—plus, 60—plus, and they are the core i audience that give support to putin and this war. - what they have now, facebook and instagram are recognised. as extremist organisations. they are banned and blocked. twitter is banned as well. still youtube is operating and - telegram is another social network. but we don't know for how long youtube will be alive. - because i think to shutdown youtube might provoke many new protests - from youth and teenagers, - i think it is the only reason why

they have not shut down youtube yet. i noticed and we have seen it replayed over here the last few days some messages that arnold schwarzenegger has delivered to the russian people and a bit of borisjohnson speaking in russian. that's all fine but... yes, how to reach them. so we face new challenges. it must be a technological start—up, it's not about content. _ many reporters, great reporters left the country and right now they havej started providing information i through their youtube channels and using different platforms. at the moment, some of the youtube stuff is getting through? yes. and former reporters - at a company i co—founded, they have started every night a news broadcast on youtube, _ the audience is quite narrow, youtube accounts, but it -

will be increased. but how to reach the majority of people? i we don't know. yes, people started using vpn. what i learned a couple of days ago that i found and you have a campaign on social networks from the government. about vpn is after your data. vpn will steal your data. the address that allows you to access the media beyond the filters, beyond the censors basically. yeah, don't use vpn, don't download vpn,| you will lose all your data, credit cards and etc. - i have already seen such campaign. but for many people, _ for my colleagues, for my friends who are in moscow, they started using vpn, but vpn is not- a solution because vpn will be restricted in a month or so, i

like how it happened in iran. so it must be different type of vpn. the iranians know very well what it is, junk vpn. - we are delving towards iran. it is our direction. of course, iran is a good example because it is a country with a very young population and they are much more media—savvy. the penetration of vpn - there is biggest in the planet. i think china is quite big, too, to be honest. but they are a different type of firewall in china. - in russia, the government follows iranian way of firewall technology. j so it must... something must be created and given for free. - back to shortwave radio or radio free europe, voices from america, bbc, there are other ways. memories of cold war communications.

what we were discussing, | when i was a child, i recall all adults around me were sitting next to the radio and searching l for bbc on shortwave and by the way, i think we have to use this way- because 60—plus people, - i hope they still have their radios. they can dust it off and remember how to twiddle the knobs. the tubes will all be burnt out! maybe we will be sending free tubes. posting them or sending them and throwing them down from the air, who knows? the question that can be asked in the west is in a war like this, how confident can we be that we are getting the truth? look, in a war, nobody gets the whole truth. i tend to think that the ukrainians are telling a lot of truth, but not the whole truth. there are things obviously we are not learning about the conduct of the war, and a lot of that is that you don't disclose everything in a war, but i don't think

that they are lying. whereas i do tend to think that the other side is lying. and you're presented with absolutely black—and—white. but as in russia, in china, people are getting a very different story. they are getting the story that this is all america's fault, that what else could russia do? they are not getting the story about the atrocities and the suffering of the people. and there is a kind of really angry nationalism in china which has been fostered by this regime, which is absolutely exultant at what is happening... gives washington a bloody nose. indeed and is hero—worshiping putin. and now that it's a month in, you are beginning to see some rather more anxious voices, which have not entirely been censored.

wondering if this is entirely in china's long—term interest, are there risks in this situation worth it? without blaming anybody for getting them in the situation, but pointing out that you have higher fruit prices, you have higher energy prices. china has already got an awful lot of economic troubles. all the belt and road countries are going to be very severely impacted, so it's not great for what was meant to be a triumphant year demonstrating the chinese system was superior to all others. people are beginning to advance slightly contrary arguments, but until now it's been pretty flat out pro—moscow lines. and for people who don't have access to alternative points of view, it's very difficult to know that you're just being lied to. what is the risk of escalation in this conflict? that for all everybody says, this is strictly about ukraine, between russia and ukraine

and we are supporting ukraine from the outside, that it's actually maybe a danger of creating a situation where it's actually not in russia's interest to do anything other than keep going and at some point, something happens to accelerate things? and russian military doctrine has escalate to de—escalate as part of it, which means use nuclear weapons in order to scare the other guys and then people will perhaps come to the bargaining table. the difficulty of course is try to figure out what putin's goals are. it does seem quite obvious that he did not get what he expected in ukraine. and we hear reports of lots of generals being killed and perhaps even by their own troops, morale is bad. must be very embarrassing, finding out things by his own system that he didn't know. does he figure out some graceful way to retreat to donbas or does he, as he set nuclear forces on some kind of alert, but we don't

know exactly what it is, but they have threatened the use of chemical and biological weapons by saying the west was doing it with ukraine, classic false flag that we've seen before. if it is in his own head that he is not getting information, that is the greatest danger. i think biden is listening to what is going on, but is putin? and on that question, you mentioned the chemical, there is an extraordinary story you were telling us is being propagated in state media about a so—called biological weapon programme in ukraine. i it is not a story, it is two weeks' . narrative from propaganda channels. the first couple of weeks, - they were telling there are nazis and we have to eliminate nazi from ukraine. - | and they changed their narrative| into we found many laboratories. the united states is behind them. they have developed and created biological and chemical weapons. now it is weapon just against russians. - with ethnic... i don't know how to say.

it's ethnically programmed to affect only russians. russian civilians. what will it do to them? reduce the reproductive... make them sterile? yes. it is serious because every day- we hear this weapon and we are told that words and buts will distribute this chemical weapon in russia. . i don't even want to make any comments on that. i but the interesting thing is that putin always saysj that we are one nation. laughter and i'm thinking how. to create anti—russian weapon against one nation. very sophisticated. it's also worth noting the story about these labs has also been

picked up on american far—right social media and did get into fox news at one point with tucker carlson. so, we all have disinformation circulating in our country. and the things about coronavirus vaccines and some of the stories that it was going to affect fertility and so on. one of the good things that's been going on is the citizenjournalism, the amazing use of satellite imagery and geo—tagged images and reddit groups and what is going on on the battlefield, we know a lot more than from most previous battlefields. that does not mean we know the motivations are of the leaders or the information they are getting... there are ways of calling out some of this disinformation. in collecting the data that does need to be used for prosecutions and it's interesting that it's being built up brick by brick. it turns out ukraine has an awful lot of tech—savvy young people with very good english.

you need so many witnesses commit so many correspondents _ from from aljazeera, i bbc and many different countries in the field. it's very important. it does raise the question of again joe biden using the phrase on thursday i think, the man is a war criminal, that putin is a war criminal. effectively has already declared that. the british have announced they were giving £1 million this week to the international criminal court to investigate. the americans don't recognise the icc, but nonetheless putting on your lawyer hat, if you don't mind, what you think the prospects are of any of this ever getting off the ground? the idea that putin is going to be in the dock someday would require quite a change in world politics. we would have to see him out of power and sent to his yacht in italy and arrested on the way or whatever it is.

the icc has the right to start investigating without referrals and the interesting idea that has come over the last few days is a new tribunal, an ad hoc one for aggression, which is actually a concept invented by a sovietjurist in the nuremberg era. and it would allow kind of an easy trial because it is right against the people at the top. not a lot of lot of proving of facts on the field, you just know that i would say this is a war of aggression and you could get a pretty good case going around it quickly. now, it took ten years for milosevic to get to the hague and often there is a lag, but it often will create a sense of dishonor among russians and eventually although it could be one more conspiracy from the west, i think in general these things have to be done because you have to build

the sinews of civilisation slowly and this is one way to do it. to say the war is over and we have sorted it and we cannot allow this stuff to go on prosecuted. and you know from your time as a foreign correspondent how that international tribunal for the former yugoslavia worked, and it did over a very long period bring most of the key figures to some sort ofjustice. yes, it did. i think it was possible to arrest people in yugoslavia if you could find them. they were not hiding that convincingly, but if you wanted to arrest them, you could. i guess i don't suppose putin is going to be holidaying in the south of france in the near future. and it depends on how wide the bench

is because that would apply to anyone who was on that list. getting a hold of people, you can have a case ready but if you don't get hold of people, it's fairly, not meaningless, but it's not brought to conclusion. let me ask you before we finish then, do you worry in your own mind that this could get out of hand? that this war has started, but through whatever missteps on either side that this could lead to wider conflict? does that thought trouble you? yes. — i think putin is unstoppable. and i understand that he must bring victory until may the 9th. _ it's victory day in russia. and if he fails, i don't know- what would happen in his mind. i don't know. i feel it's a very, - very complex situation, and it might lead anywhere. jeff.

i'm sorry to hear that, but i agree with you absolutely. there are so many possibilities and his psychology has been so much never to back down. and he really has believed that the west is weak and that he can dominate and he must dominate in order to explain himself to himself. and that's the dynamic that of course is terrifying. he also... does he want to launch nuclear war for his own people? it's hard to imagine how anyone can have that rational thought. it's not about russia now. this is of course the danger. and what we don't know is whether there is a possibility within his circle where he to give the order to launch a nuclear strike, whether that order would be carried out

and there are so many unknowns here. but i think that the choice will come down to trying to force russia into a defeat or trying to find some face—saving form where putin can declare victory and go home and whatever that is. and that's a very, very tough thing. do you think that is in the west's mind yet? because the focus seems to be more about holding things together and getting everybody on the same page. i think that is going to be in people's minds. going by scenarios of what could be taken by ukraine and the rest of the world and what is sufficiently robust that it would discourage russia from the next phase of this great plan, which could be the baltics or poland or whatever it could be. briefly were putin to use nuclear weapons in ukraine, he could in theory find itself at war with china because china has given ukraine a nuclear guarantee signed by xi jinping in 2013. there is an interesting thought to end on. thank you very much. that is dateline, see you next week, bye—bye.

hello. a glorious day for many, you can hardly believe it is only the end of march when we see sights like this, not a cloud in the sky. there are some showers to be found, mostly across the northern and western isles. this is the western isles earlier on this morning. that is because we have that cloud stubbornly sitting there unfortunately spoiling the sunshine. a little fair weather cloud developing across southern scotland down to north west england as well, but the emphasis is dry, settled and sunny with light winds continuing through the afternoon and once again the temperatures

peaking quite widely — mid to high teens. don't forget, when you're off to bed tonight, put the clocks forward an hour, we lose an hour sleep and emerge tomorrow in british summer time, so what a surprise to see there will be a little more cloud for many of us, spilling in off the north sea, particularly anywhere south of hull down towards the south—east. that cloud will act as our friend through the night, preventing temperatures from falling quite as far as they have been, but does mean it could be a rather grey and gloomy start for some on mothering sunday, the cloud tending to nudge further westwards, thinning and breaking for some glimpses of sunshine, but the best of the sunshine for sunday looks likely to be further north and west. that is where the highest values will be, 18 degrees perhaps in one or two spots, cooler where that cloud lingers along north sea coasts. as we move out of sunday into the start of a new working week, a weather front starts to slip across the top of the weakening high, running down to the north sea. that will bring more in the way of cloud, a few scattered showers,

some could be hefty across north—east england in particular, we could start the day on monday with a lot of low cloud, mist and fog which will be slow to lift. the highest values perhaps down towards the south, 16 degrees, starting to get colder, only 6 degrees across lerwick. the colder air will be the story as we move through the week, pushing its way gradually south, accompanied by a northerly wind, it will feel certainly much different. in fact, we are going to close out the month of march with temperatures just below the average for the time of year and we could see some of those showers turning increasingly wintry. that's it, enjoy the sun.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm ben boulos. our top stories... explosions in lviv — smoke rises over the ukrainian city as russian rocket attacks continue. i'm in lviv, where as darkness falls the people in this city are still taking shelter. in poland, us presidentjoe biden holds face—to—face talks with ukrainian government ministers and has this message for russia. nato stay absolutely, completely, thoroughly united. president biden continues his visit to poland where he met ukrainian refugees. he's expected to make a speech in warsaw soon.

in other news, a ferry operated by p&0 has been detained