this is bbc news. the headlines: rescue workers are still searching for survivors in southern turkey and northern syria following monday's earthquakes. more than 12,000 people have been killed and it's feared thousands more are still trapped. the turkish president, recep tayyip erdogan, has defended his government's response to the quakes. president zelensky of ukraine has addressed the uk parliament in a brief trip to england. he appealed for fighterjets to use against the russians. mr zelensky has moved on to france where he held talks with president macron, and the german chancellor, 0laf scholz. the walt disney company has announced that it's cutting 7000 jobs in a restructuring plan. the entertainment group said the cuts were aimed at helping its struggling streaming division, disney

plus. the service has been losing money in the face of strong competition from rival companies. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk. sally is here at five p.m.. she will keep you company. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the first anniversary of russia's all out invasion of ukraine is fast approaching, there's both a feeling here and in moscow that it would herald a new phase in the war. president zelensky is visiting european allies with his focus firmly on the challenges to come.

a new russian offensive is seemingly imminent. the west is arming ukraine but still not and scale they would wish. my guess is ukrainian mp kira rudik. can ukraine win a long war? kira rudik in kyiv, welcome. thank you so much for having me. a pleasure to have you. i would like you to reflect on president zelensky�*s message here in europe. do you think the focus from the ukrainian government is more on the gratitude for

what european partners have already delivered or more on the urgency to give more now? i think it is 50—50. what we learned over this last year is that you have to create alliances, you have to keep it and to keep the alliances with gratitude but also we want the world to keep supporting us. the war did not start a year ago. it started in 2014 and what was the most painful is after a year, it became a new normal. a new normal for everyone and we still had to fight our fight. so right now we don't want to repeat the story. we want to keep the war on the agenda and get enough weapons so that we can actually win the war. because the strategy is to drive everyone into this long fight with the hope that

the allies will not sustain it. that at some point everybody will move on. this is what he has done in georgia and what he did to us in 2014, this is his plan moving on. and we need... and our plan is to get the most of what we can, fight him back, win and then defend our borders. is there a degree of fear in kyiv right now fear of ukraine fatigue setting in europe and may be in the us as well? we live side by side with this fear is probably since the second week of the full—scale invasion.

this is why are working on international fronts this is why president zelensky is doing his international visits, showing gratitude but also saying we are still fighting, we are still here, please don't forget about us. please stand with us, please win with us. talking of fear, i do sense a different tone in recent weeks coming from your government about the scale of the immediate threat posed by russian forces on the front lines. after all of the optimism in the autumn when ukrainian forces pushed them back from swathes of occupied territory what we have heard in recent days is ukrainian intelligence and military chiefs talking about 300—500,000 newly mobilised russian troops being sent to the front line. we have had predictions that there is going to be an imminent and massive russian push on various fronts, particularly in the east. how much fear is there in kyiv that the threat now posed, it may not be something that ukraine's

current military configuration cannot cope with? let's look at the facts here. first, the mobilisation started in autumn so by this time, they were already able to mobilise and train those troops and we have confirmation that they have been moving those troops closer to the battlefield. this is fact one. fact two is putin did not have any major victory on the battlefield since before the counteroffensive on kherson and he has to have some wins, he has to show why he started a war to his people, allies, the whole world. third, what we have learned during the last year is putin is absolutely... 0n the dates.

so the major attacks on cue in all of the cities were at hundreds day of war, and therefore half of the year 1—year anniversary and christmas and etc. so we are getting closer to one year anniversary and we don't anticipate, we know that the offensive from the russian side will be related to the state. if you believe this one year anniversary date is important to moscow how disappointed will you be if you don't have the modern battle tanks that the americans have promised because they have promised a hundred at least but there is no way that they will be available to your troops until later in the spring. that is a big problem, is it not? it is. and of course we are disappointed and upset and, you name it, the feelings. however, when we are talking about the disappointment, we are also

looking back and saying, look how far we come and how much better we are, better shape with better equipment than we were a year ago. so there were so many impossible things that you and me would never think that would happen actually did starting with the heavy weapons, right now the promises of the tanks is much better than no promises because we know that at some point we will have them. but sure in the short run they can't fight with promises, wnever mind the tanks issue where at least you have a commitment to tanks coming, when it comes to war planes, combat aircraft, president zelensky in london, again made a passionate plea for these warplanes, he called them the wings for freedom. we know that from 0laf scholz

in germany and most particularly tojoe biden in the united states, the answer still is we do not think it is right for us to send warplanes to ukraine. so again, ultimately, it is a question of disappointment, is not? not really. we again learned that no is something that you could work with. something that you can fight. we have heard this no for a year, since day one when i was sitting in the same room begging the world to help us because the bombardment was everywhere. the explosions that you could have heard on tv when it was happening. everyone said no and they said no for many other things. that right now have turned to yes. so we know thatjust like another international project that we have had to work with to get their warplanes. no one is talking about them and to answer your question what would happen if we fail? what would happen if

we stopped existing? to be honest, if you read carefully what western politicians are continuing to say, their focus is often on not so much what happens if ukraine is defeated, there focuses on what happens if we supply potent weapons which become escalatory, a word often used with regard to their relationship with russia and their fear of a moscow inspired escalation. to quote 0laf scholz when he ruled out sending warplanes to ukraine to use the simple phrase. "nato is not at war with russia.�* do you find that thinking problematic or do you recognise it as absolutely what western leaders would have to say? two months ago, 0laf scholz and many others is said absolutely no to tanks. so right now

when they are saying we are not in war with russia, we totally agree. but the question is the question we never heard in answer to is when everyone is afraid of russia escalating — to what — a nuclear attack? after discussions with president xijinping and with india it has been pretty much ruled out. so what the escalation would look like? i don't think there is a proper answer to that. the escalation is that russia will go and attack nato countries? excuse me, they are failing and ukraine right now. they don't have potency for that definitely. so the question again that we need to reform the ideas about you mentioned is, what would happen if ukraine fails? because i have an answer to that. right now it is not

only russia who is watching on the world's response. nato already committed to supporting ukraine in is already battlefield between putin and the whole western world who is supporting ukraine. so if we fail, it would mean that tyranny wins. that the whole forces of nato is not enough to combat russia. then i can name you many tyrants who will raise their hands and say, great, thank you so much for this fantastic example. now we know how we should act. we should get a nuclear weapon and then we should take over our neighbours�* land and we know that we will get away with it. this is not the world that we want to live in, right? this is something opposite that we want to build. one key element you thought would sustain you and make you victorious was notjust the military balance which you feel, will ultimately work

in your favour if the west gives you weapons, but also the economic arena where you appear to believe that the isolation of russia and consistent sanctions imposed by the international community would, in the end, bring russia down. how do you feel about the fact that the imf now predicts the russian economy is actually going to grow in 2023 by 0.3% and by 2% in �*21i. does it feel like that economic battle is one that you will not win? when we are talk about russian economy and sanctions, we need to remember that real sanctions that were hitting russia hard only started working in january of this year. the embargo on oil and the cap on gas and oil prices.

before that, they were rather sanctional so cutting ability to trade and hitting particular personalities. so we will need to fight for probably another year to see how bad they perform under the sanctions. you need to be a realist here, you probably know better than i do that russia's deepened its economic with china and president xijinping is expected to go to moscow quite soon to get symbolise that partnership. we know the indians are actually buying more russian energy because of the opportunistic price levels they can get it out. we know that brazil and south africa and a host of other countries are not only refusing to impose sanctions but are also refusing, frankly, to condemn putin and what friendly relations with him. the idea that you could isolate russia and bring it low, economically, frankly,

it does not seem as though it will work. it will work in the long term. so again, we cannot expect that it will happen overnight, that russia will be weekend overnight. and what needs to happen soon is acknowledging russia, as a state sponsor of terrorism, putting secondary sanctions on them, pushing harder. basically what has been done to them was the hope that the economy will be torn apart wasjust step one of the longer plan. one of the items that we are working on is making sure that russian central bank assets are being confiscated. so putin has been preparing for the war and has stored about $500 billion in the countries that he actually despises. so in the united states, canada, united kingdom, other democratic countries. and what we should do right now, what is fair and logical way to go on

is to confiscate those assets and use them to support ukraine. that would be another hit to the russian economy and that would be the fair way not make people in the country that support us pay for putin's crimes, but also, make putin pay for his crimes and for the destruction that he made. and when we are talking about the international coalition and the countries that do not want to stop dealing with mr putin, it will be another sign for them that the ones who are breaking the international laws will be punished as well. i guess the theme of our conversation today is that this is now looking like a very long war and ukraine has to prepare itself for that long struggle. do you think, in terms of ukraine's internal cohesion as a society, it is able to sustain all of the pressures that come with fighting in all—out existential war

for years? it is a challenge indeed. and it is easy to be united for one month, it is harder to be united for six months and it is very hard to be united and cohesive for years. but for us, the question is — what is the alternative? 0n the political matter, it has been a year and we were doing very well for this year, we made a vow at the very beginning, at the first day of the full—scale invasion to put political differences aside and to work as one. and no matter how painful it was, i think we managed to sustain it. but aren't there are now signs of fragmentation? i mean, one immediate example — your defence minister was widely tipped just a few days ago to be removed. it was felt that zelensky

wanted a new approach in the defence ministry. resnicov made it plain that he was not prepared to budge, and now there is a great deal of uncertainty about exactly what is happening. this is not good for that projection of unity, is it? ah, of course, and this is why we are working to make sure that media announcements are not being made before the decisions are made, because they hurt everybody. it's not a good time to change a minister of defence when you are on track to getting the weapons that you need and that when you are preparing for a massive attack from your enemy. however, the reasons why the minister of defence was supposed to be removed were the recent claims of the corruption that we are fighting, and this is one of the huge challenges for our country.

do you think... it should be clear to everybody — you are actually the leader of an opposition party in kyiv, the golos party. so in a sense, before the war began, you were a harsh critic of zelensky when it came to allegations of corruption in high places in ukraine and the failure to take on the so—called oligarchs. are you satisfied with what he has done in the recent days and weeks? we have seen various senior officials fired, allegations of corruption, even within the defence department when it comes to the procurement of basic goods like foodstuffs for the armed forces. zelensky says he is now on top of it. do you think he is? i think firing people and creating cases for people is a good start, but i will be satisfied when i see that the processes are

changed and that there is a proper control of them and that we are moving towards the transparent procurement for the army. this is what we are fighting for, not for having somebody fired, but to make sure that every single day we are becoming better in those processes and those matters. we understand that the war can be long—run for us. this is why we need to prepare on a larger scale, not on the scale of one or two or three people fired. what does an opposition leader do at a time like this? when all of the talk of need for national unity, have you buttoned up your lips to a certain extent when it comes to critiquing the government and president zelensky in particular? yes, we are doing it behind the scenes. i am working as team ukraine, not as in oppositional leader. there is no opposition in times of war.

but in times of war. hang on. that is very interesting. you say you have signed up to team ukraine. there are questions about how he is handling the reform of the constitutional court, which the european union is not happy with. there are also questions about the way in which the county government is handling the question of minority rights when it comes to russian language in russian culture in your country. doesn't ukraine, even at this time of terrible war, doesn't it need an opposition that is really willing and able to confront difficult truths? this is the work that is being done. we have all the spectrum of opinions in ukrainian parliament, and we are the people who are telling our government when they are doing things wrong.

however, because of the war, we are doing it behind the scenes. not on the tv and not in a public matter as we used to do before. but the whole point of ukraine's battle is that you are fighting, you say, for freedom and democracy, and democracy has to play out in public. how can the people of ukraine be entirely confident that behind the scenes, you are really fighting for what you believe to be freedom and justice? so, first of all, we do hope that the limitations that we all put on ourselves are temporary. and we know that the fact that we are fighting for those democratic values is so important that we keep them all intact. like, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of democracy and processes.

however, at every single point, we have to make tough decisions on how not to hurt our country at this time because winning the war is much more important than anything. the example is right now we have only one tv channel where all the channels are transmitting to. we have done that because the strength of the russian propaganda and the russian attacks at the very beginning of the full—scale invasion were very strong. it is temporarily, and this is one of the ways how we are defending ourselves against the enemy. we are almost out of time. a final question coming back to the notion of a long struggle, a long war. ukraine is a country with a population that is less than one—third of that of russia's. in terms of scale and the ability to fight a long war and to endure terrible costs, russia is better placed than ukraine. does that mean that at some point you recognise there will have to be a negotiation and there will probably

have to be some sort of compromise to end this war? it has been and in it will be a david—versus—goliath situation where we cannot rely on the scale or on our similar ability to provide as many weapons, as many soldiers as russia. we have to find different strategy where we have to be struck smarter, stronger, more modern in fighting back. in terms of negotiations, what we learned is that you cannot have negotiations with russia unless you have a proper way of ensuring that they will keep their word. and there is no sign in the past that would prove that they will keep their word. it is quite the opposite. so before, there is any way a person or an organisation or anything that can assure us that russia will not

attack us again, there are no negotiations, there are no deals. you know, one of the personal things that we all share is we have seen all of the terrorists of this war and what we owe to our next generation is that this war will end on us. and for this particular sake, until we find a proper way to make sure that putin, russia or whatever would not attack us again, we will continue fighting. kira rudik, i thank you so much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you very much indeed. hello there.

there was a hard frost across england and wales, but plenty of sunshine on wednesday here. but we had gale—force gusts of winds and rain further north. this is how we closed out the afternoon in highland. and that weather front that was responsible for this continues to sink its way steadily south and east. no significant rain by the time it pushes south—east as it bumps into this area of high pressure, so a band of cloud, light drizzle from east anglia down to cornwall, slowly clearing towards the channel. behind it, some sunshine coming through. a brisker north—westerly wind will continue to feed in showers, particularly the north—west of the great glen and winds still gusting 40—50mph at times, so a noticeable strong westerly wind. temperatures around 7—9 degrees, one or two places if we are lucky just seeing 10 celsius as a high, 50 fahrenheit. now, as we close out thursday into the early hours of friday, we'll start to see a contrast.

more cloud pushing in to the far north, some showery outbreaks of rain here, but milder, temperatures holding up above freezing. with clearer skies, temperatures falling just below freezing once again across england and wales so we can't rule out frost and fog again or friday. but higher pressure dominates for england and wales, still a bit more of a breeze up into the far north—west and this westerly feed of air will continue to be a story, so it will be a slightly milder feel generally across the country. we're likely to see temperatures into double digits. that weather front toppling across the high will bring outbreaks of showery rain into scotland. more cloud, high cloud across northern england and wales as well, highs generally of 9—13 degrees. now, as we move into the weekend, that milder air will continue to be the story. the high pressure really just sitting across europe and clinging onto central and southern england, with weather fronts toppling across that high. so that means we'll always run the risk of more cloud and outbreaks of rain

with a stronger wind across the far north and west. there'll be quite a lot of cloud generally on saturday, but it will be largely fine and dry for england and wales, and a little bit milder. 9—13 degrees the high. similar story as well as we go to sunday — watch out for that early morning mist and fog once again.

hello. this is bbc news. i'm sally bundock with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. rescuers workers in turkey and syria continue searching for the thousands still trapped by the earthquakes that have killed over 15,000 people. turkey's president erdogan admits mistakes were made in the initial response as the extent of the devastation becomes ever clearer. the ever clearer. rescuers say they will come back the rescuers say they will come back tomorrow and the next day. they will return to size like this for as long as it takes to return loved ones to their relatives. —— sites.