this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lukwesa burak. our top stories: the us government tries to clarify president biden�*s comments about vladimir putin remaining in power, saying it is not america'sjob to force him out. as you know, and as you've heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in russia, or anywhere else for that matter. as the destruction of ukraine continues, president zelensky urges western countries to supply more planes, tanks, and missile defence systems. ukrainian military intelligence says moscow may be attempting to split the country into two parts having failed to take the capital. officials in colombia say taylor hawkins,

the drummer with the rock band the foo fighters, who's died at the age of 50, used drugs before he died. the uk government plans to take a 20% stake in a large—scale nuclear plant at sizewell in suffolk. are we going to have to leave belfast? and the wait is nearly over for this year's oscar nominees. the academy awards ceremony will be getting under way in hollywood later. acceptance speeches are likely to strike a more sombre tone, but the show will go on in celebration of an art form that offers an avenue of escape when arguably the world has never needed one more.

hello and welcome to bbc news. the us secretary of state, antony blinken, has denied the white house has a policy of regime change in russia. it follows comments made by president biden on saturday, during a speech in poland, in which he said of president putin — "for god's sake, this man cannot remain in power". mr blinken, who's in israel for an historic two—day summit, clarified that it's for the russian people to decide. meanwhile, ukraine's president, volodymyrzelensky, has repeated his call for more weapons and military support from the west. our correspondent jonah fisher is in lviv. there was an angry statement from volodymyr zelensky, ukraine's president, last night. it came just after the city that i'm in now, lviv, was targeted by russian cruise missiles.

in that statement, president zelensky called on nato countries to get their dusty weapons out of their storerooms and send them here to ukraine. the west has of course already sent large amounts of anti—tank and anti—aircraft missiles here to ukraine and there have been some foreigners who have off their back decided to come here and join the fight. now, i went to the border with poland to meet up with three british former servicemen who have decided to come here to ukraine. they told me they had come here determined to fight and to do their bit. c] is a dog handlerfrom norwich. elliott works on building sites in colchester. kieran is a brighton plumber. i can't sit at home and watch what's going on and just carry on as usual. between them, the men have 19 years of experience with the british army and have all served in afghanistan. we catch up with them just after they've crossed the border

from poland into ukraine. we met at the airport, and it's all been like we've known each other for a lot longer than 2a hours. having taken a £20 flight to poland, they'd slept overnight outside a railway station. cj and elliott had told their families where they were going. kieran, a father of four, had not. i didn't tell the mums, no. i didn't even tell my mum. what brought them together was a desire to do something, anything, to help ukraine. if you're not fighting on someone else's street, does it end up in yours? does it end up, you know, do my kids become a target? do my mates' kids? i will do anything. i'm a trained infantry soldier. i'll help out wherever i can in the field, anywhere from back to front. from the border, it's 50 miles and a bus ride to lviv, the biggest city in the west. these guys are now going to meet up with the ukrainian authorities

to see if they want to sign up with the foreign legion here. if they don't, there may be a more direct route to the front line. they've been speaking with other british ex—soldiers who are already there. they may be able to link up directly with them to get where the fighting is. joining this war if you are a serving british soldier is illegal, but for others it's more of a grey area. cj, kieran and elliott say they were pulled aside by the police for a chat as they left the uk but then allowed to travel on. my name isjulia, andl what are your names? julia is returning from the border, having helped her daughter to cross. we've come to join the legion to help fight, if need be, to fight the russians. you are soldiers? you are fighters? yeah, we are ex—army. 0k. thank you very much that . you have come here to help our ukrainian soldiers.

also, they are very brave, very brave. | lviv and the railway station is the volunteers' next stop. there are now serious decisions to be made about where and what comes next. what would you say to people in the uk who say you guys are just looking for the excitement of war? there is no excitement to war. it's not nice, it's not pleasant. you know, we've seen it. there's nothing nice about dead kids at the side of the road. and are you prepared to die here? absolutely. and with that, c], kieran and elliott marched off — british boys in putin's war. we arejust going we are just going to show you some live pictures now, sorry some pictures that were sent to us earlier. these are firefighters that

were part of the team tackling the fire at the fuel storage facility that was struck in lviv by russian shelling. they have been sourced by the state emergency services of ukraine, writers have been able to send that to us. they have been verified, so you can see just how hot it was. there were a series of rockets that were fired at lviv, which is highly unusual because the town mainly left untouched. it has been a bit of a hub for people who are in transit, trying to make their way to poland. now come at the pictures could have been on a saturday night or early hours of sunday, but eventually that fire was put out. you can see that thick smoke and there is a strong flames as a result of that shelling and speaking to our correspondent

earlier, she did confirm that five people have been wounded as a result of some of that shelling on the western city of lviv. ukraine's president, volodymyr zelensky, has urged western governments to supply planes, tanks, and missile defence systems to his country to help them fight russian forces. in an impassioned, video address, he said heavy weapons which could defend freedom in europe were instead gathering dust in stockpiles. i asked dr patrick bury, a former british army captain and nato analyst, if the west really has these stockpiles. in a nutshell, it is very evocative imagery. it does, yes. you know, for example, the uk would keep some of its tanks back. it would also have aircraft that it is not using operationally, for example, you know. and missile defence systems, and the us is particularly important there, because it actually bought a lot of old soviet era stuff to see how they worked, and that is really what the ukrainians are used

to using, and so that is what they need. some of the british tanks, for example, if they had them in the stockpiles or we were to offer them, would need completely new training for the ukrainians. so really it is about russian kit, who has got russian kit, and if we think about that in terms of nato, it is often the countries on the eastern flank and the former warsaw pact countries that have some of the kit. what are the ukrainians looking for? they've asked for tanks, you know, they are used to operating the t—64 tank, quite an old one that has been updated a little bit. and also the t—72, and lesser the t—80. so their tanks are potentially countries like poland, hungary, bulgaria may have. but they would be using some of those, especially the more newer variants. and then also they have looked for air defence systems and actually anti—ship systems, too, missile systems. and again, this is where the us would probably come in. we know that they have been getting a lot of stingers which are effective at low

altitudes, but what the ukrainians are looking for is the next level up, the sa8 and s—300, which have longer range and are, yeah, capable of faster targets as well. so, dr bury, that is their wish list. now, we have already learned, haven't we, with poland? they have been more than willing to supply some planes that ukraine said they could use, but they haven't been able to because of the implications of nato entering the conflict. what can they supply ukraine with? you are saying that there is kit there, so why haven't they handed it over? why not? well, i think the key thing is defensive. this has been a war of annexation by russia, an invasion of ukraine as we all know. and so nato has been very careful to calibrate their response as being defensive only, and that comes down to what are the weapons' capabilities? so if you are giving a country anti—tank missiles,

and you are giving them hand—held anti—aircraft missiles, it is quite hard then to launch an offensive with those. not impossible, but they are generally seen as defensive weapons. the big escalatory risk with giving a country ground attack and fighters like that is that potentially, and we did see the ukrainian air force in the early days of the campaign actually attack inside russia, as far as i'm aware, so the danger is that that could actually be seen as more offensive by russia. it is not unprecedented that countries would supply other countries in a time of war by proxy with jets for example, it has happened before, and there hasn't been a massive escalation, but it does run the risk of it and certainly it seems that the west, us, nato, transatlantic countries are much more reticent to do that than some of the eastern countries that are closer to the fight.

the us secretary of state, antony blinken, is in israel for a historic summit with four arab countries. the meeting at a venue in the negev desert is the first that israel has hosted with senior officials from so many arab governments. it follows the signing in recent years, of us—brokered years of us—brokered deals to normalise ties. our middle east correspondent yolande knell has more on the historic summit. this is the first time that israel has been able to host, in israeli territory, so many top officials from arab countries. it's now gone up to four arab foreign ministers that are going to join. the foreign ministers from the united arab emirates, from bahrain and from morocco — those are all countries with which isreal has had one of these us—brokered normalisation deals, the so—called abraham accords, in the last year and a half. also, egypt will be here. the egyptian foreign minister is coming. and egypt has actuallyjust marked 43 years since it signed its peace treaty with israel,

but of course that peace treaty was always described as having produced a kind of cold peace. it's very much a different situation with his other arab countries. israel is finding lots of common interest with them, and it will be very much about iran — the priority for them talking to the americans is because the us and world powers are moving so close to a new nuclear deal with iran, to really air their misgivings about that. and we heard from antony blinken, talking to yair lapid, he said that really the 2015 nuclear deal he felt was the best way to put iran's nuclear programme back into the box it was in. so he's saying that washington is going to continue to counter any iranian threat, that it still remains very much engaged in this region. that's something its allies

have been worried about. authorities in shanghai have announced a phased lockdown starting on monday to combat a spike in coronavirus cases in the city. residents will be locked down in two groups between 28th march and 5th april and a mass testing programme will be put in place. all public transport will be suspended for the duration and factories will close — only public services and food supply operations will be allowed to continue. shanghai reported over 2,500 asymptomatic covid cases on sunday, a new daily record. the uk government says it plans to invest up to two billion pounds in a new nuclear power station in suffolk. the french energy firm edf will match that 20% stake in sizewell c. our business correspondent

katie prescott is here. i asked her earlierfor more details. we are watching this because of the rising cost of living, because of concerns about climate change but also because of the conflict in ukraine. and because of what's happening there, with russia being such a key we are watching this because of the rising cost and there's a big push across countries around the world, notjust in the uk, to become more energy self—sufficient as a result. particularly in the west, a desire to stop funding russia's war with ukraine by buying energy. in britain a pillar of this really is nuclear power. the problem is, it's very expensive so the uk government hopes that by putting this money in, other investors will come forward to match it. it's also not without controversy. we are expecting people in the local area could challenge it but it's certainly a key pillar of their energy plans going forward. you know what, like you said, it's notjust the uk, is it? i was listening recently to germany's chancellor

and he was laying out their energy strategy, saying we can't really move away from russian energy sources until 202a. the government is set to make an announcement later this week. that's right, so the uk government is going to set out its energy strategy and is going to be about being more self—sufficient and pushing into low—carbon. that will be moving into nuclear, like with this plan, increasing renewables. the idea of having nuclear is it's a low—carbon back—up, if you will, if the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. fascinating, you mentioned germany. at the start of the ukraine conflict, we were all saying it would be completely impossible for germany to wean itself off russian oil and and yet alongside the uk and america that's exactly what it's trying to do. this does require huge wholesale change in how countries around the world get their energy. it's a very long—term strategy. clearly it's not something that will change overnight. but that seems to be

the direction of travel. the foo fighters drummer taylor hawkins had opioids, marijuana and other drugs in his system before he died, colombian investigators say. hawkins, who was 50, died at a hotel in bogota, with the band due to play at a music festival this weekend. a toxicology report showed traces of ten substances in his body, including anti—depressants. a ukrainian rock band has gone viral after appealing to ed sheeran to take part in a benefit concert for ukraine, which is happening in the uk later this week. that is on tuesday. this is how antytila would usually be spending their time. they sing but the band members have had to swap their live concerts for military combat gear after the war broke out

in their country. i spoke to lead singer taras topolya about serving on the front line. just now i am in kyiv, the capital of ukraine, near the front line. we resist russian occupation. just in the moment, while speaking with you, some of my colleagues are holding guns in their arms. why are you doing this, taras? why go to the front line, essentially? because i'm a citizen of my country, because i like my country, i love my country. there is no another way to defend the future of our country. no matter who i was before the war started. ok, you were... a lot of people did like i did. have been like i did.

so, you made an appeal to ed sheeran, taras, what happened ? what, repeat, please? you made an appeal to ed sheeran, didn't you? what happened next? ed sheeran got back to us and he said that he is very appreciate to help ukrainian people, that he is standing by the ukrainian people and he wants to check out our music, the music of the band of antytila. but we also had response from organisers of the concert and they said no for us. did they explain why? and do you understand their explanation? do you accept it? yeah, they say that this concert has purely humanitarian mission and because we are wearing helmets

and handling weapons in our arms, we are not in concept of this show. so we accept it, of course. we are a little bit upset because of this, but the main thing is that ed sheeran will play this concert and disasters emergency committee will provide the money and will help ukrainian refugees. it is the main, so, but... but i very hope that the main message from ukraine will be sent to all of the people who will watch this show, that ukraine are strong, that we are brave and we are fighting against the russians. and we will win. we will get the victory. there is no another way for us,

because we are defending not just our country, but the future of all of the europe. i think it's understandable for all who are watching me now. taras, obviously those are the explanations that were given by the organisers. we've seen music feature so strongly in different aspects of this conflict, whether it is a violinist in bomb shelters or pianists playing before leaving their home. why do you think music is so important? because music can express. because music can impress. music is a very powerful tool to, like, send the message and to... to make an emotion. so, through the music, you can say very important words, through the melodies,

through the harmonies, through the words, through the lyrics of the song. so you need to... you need to play the music to talk with all of the people, all around the world. mm. because music is international, too. so, just because of this, we wanted to take a part in this concert, to play music and send the message. music is very powerful, but obviously social media also very powerful, because that video went viral. yeah, yeah, and it's good. and i want to thank you, the european media, the media of united kingdom, to helping us to, like, helping us and giving ukrainian message to the world. because you know the russian propaganda is very strong and our war is not so strong. but with your help we can talk

with all over the world. and it's very important. thank you so much for this. in a few short hours, hollywood's finest will be walking down the red carpet to attend the 94th academy awards. but this year, nervousness has not just been around if they'll win an oscar, but if they can attend because of covid. our culture editor katie razzall is at the dolby theatre in los angeles. it's the top prize the movie business has to offer, and for days they've been preparing, rolling out a show—stopping experience for the biggest night of the year. when it comes to the actual top prize, best picture, it's almost certain for the first time to be a film made by one of the streaming services. apple's coda, the story of a deaf family with one

hearing child, appears to have the momentum behind it. whistling netflix has pinned its hopes on its 1920s western the power of the dog. it may miss out for best picture, butjane campion looks likely to be only the third woman in history to win best director. there may be a buzz in this town about these awards, but last year's tv show attracted the lowest audience ever. can they turn it around? it's fun to watch celebrities gather. we're in, you know, we still have this pandemic, there's a war happening in europe and i think that having, i don't know, some distraction is not a terrible thing. and finding something that all of us can come together and have some emotions about is a really powerful and important thing. the ceremony will mark what's happening in ukraine. one of the hosts said she hoped president zelensky might even address the guests. as for the ceremony,

the acting categories are the ones that punch out. west side story�*s arianna debose is tipped to win best supporting actress, the first openly queer woman of colour to take that prize. as momentous, will smith could clinch best actor, only the fifth black man to do so, for his portrayal of the father of tennis stars venus and serena williams in king richard. and troy kotsur should win best supporting actor and become the first deaf man with an acting oscar. sci—fi epic dune could win a sweep of craft categories, though for the first time, controversially, those awards aren't being handed out live. as for uk and irish hopes, they're pinned on sir kenneth branagh's belfast — up for seven oscars, including best picture. katie razzall, bbc news, los angeles.

you are watching bbc news, plenty more coming up shortly. good afternoon. after the warm, sunny days we've had lately, i think the weather this week will come as something as a shock to the system because it's going to turn much colder and with that, for some of us, there will be some snow. the nights turning increasingly cold and frosty as well. where we have had low cloud, mist and fog today, it's been feeling quite chilly. that was the scene from a weather watcher in essex earlier on. some of these eastern areas will stay grey and murky through the day. west, more sunshine, lifting temperatures to around 17. this evening and tonight the area of low cloud, mist and fog tends to expand and we see some showers breaking out across northern england and north wales, later tonight as well. where we do keep clear skies overnight it will be relatively chilly with temperatures getting down to around freezing.

milder where we have more cloud. tomorrow, the area of high pressure that's been with us for so long shows signs of loosening its grip and that will allow things to slowly turn a bit more unsettled. so we'll have these showers across parts of northern england, the isle of man, potentially into south—eastern parts cloud pushing up from the south bringing rain for the channel islands, the odd shower for the south—west of england and wales. some spells of sunshine elsewhere. temperatures up to 16 or 17 although quite chilly for the eastern coast. tuesday, a lot of cloud at this stage. the chance of showers to the south, some of them heavy. some showers breaking out further north as well and signs of those beginning to turn wintry across scotland as some colder air starts to tuck in. that's a sign of things to come. as we move into wednesday, this weather front is going to push furthersouth, bringing rain, yes, but also potentially some snow. this much colder air

pushing its way southwards. a band of rain, sleet and snow. i think the snow mostly over the hills but some could come down to the lower levels. lots of wintry showers packing into scotland through the day. they will certainly bring snow to some quite low levels. temperatures just 4, 5 degrees across northern areas. ii or 12 further south and it's going to be a pretty chilly end to the week with some rain, sleet or snow showers in places. some chilly days and cold, frosty nights.

this is bbc news, the headlines: the us government clarifies president biden�*s comments about vladimir putin remaining in power — saying it is not america's job to force him out. as the destruction of ukraine continues, president zelensky urges western countries to supply more planes, tanks, and missile defence systems. ukrainian military intelligence says moscow may be attempting to split the country into two parts. the uk government plans to take a 20% stake in a large—scale nuclear plant at sizewell in suffolk.

now on bbc news, talking business.