this is bbc news, the headlines. aid agencies says there is a mixture of hope and despair, in turkey and syria, as the painstaking search for survivors continues, after monday's earthquakes. more than 23 thousand people are known to have died — while thousands of people are living in makeshift shelters, us military fighterjets — acting on a command from president biden — have shot down an unidentified object off the northern coast of alaska. a white house spokesman said the target was the size of a small car, and posed a threat to civilian aviation. sports ministers from 35 countries have met online to discuss whether athletes from russia and belarus should participate in next year's olympic games. ukraine's president,

volodymir zelensky told the summit that terrorists have no place at the next year's paris games, so there should be a ban. now on bbc news... powering ukraine. russian missiles and drones rain down on ukraine's civilian infrastructure... explosion ..causing untold damage. it's been happening for months. this is ukraine's energy war. they chat in ukrainian a constant battle for heat and light... ..with an army of engineers racing to keep the country connected.

siren blares for ukrainians, it's been a winter of darkness and uncertainty. how does a country respond when the stakes are so high? if our system collapses, that would mean suffering of tens of millions of people during wintertime. we cannot allow that. not on my watch. we follow the teams fighting this war — what the missiles destroyed, they rebuild in places where people are living on the edge. he speaks ukrainian

this power plant in central ukraine has been hit repeatedly. it's a huge place, but this is what well—aimed russian missiles have done to the country's infrastructure. missile fragments litter the place. for security reasons, we've been asked not to identify the plant or its manager. so what happened here?

this is where electricity begins its journey from the power plant to the world outside — the first links in a complex chain. since october, moscow has been working systematically to sever those links... ..to break the system into pieces... ..to break the will

of the people. every corner of this huge complex bears the scars. while the threat still exists, not everything will be repaired. millions of people depend on this coal—fired power station. built in the soviet era, its great turbines churning away at the heart of ukraine's

sprawling power network. fantastic machine! a system now generating half as much electricity as it did a year ago. the staff here know they're in russia's sights. ihor is the plant's chief technician, on duty the morning of the first attack. when he arrived here in the main control room, he found a chaotic scene. so the whole power station is run from this room. did all of this get switched off?

it's been weeks since the last attack here. but this morning, the alarms keep coming. siren blares

so there's the siren. we have been expecting it this morning. we have to get out of the turbine hall and head straight for the shelter. incoming missiles have been detected, flying towards ukraine from the south and the east. there's time to take cover. they chat on days like these, hours are spent underground. anxious moments as news comes in of a fresh wave of attacks. their colleagues at a power station in the west have taken a direct hit. they know this could've been them. they chat and closer to home, word is spreading of something much worse. across town, a tragedy is unfolding. a missile has struck

an apartment building. the rescue effort is frantic. dozens of people have died here. the missile that did this was huge — designed half a century ago to destroy aircraft carriers. it was almost certainly aimed at the power station. some of russia's attacks are accurate. many are not. russia's assault has brought death and darkness to ukraine's cities. the nights are long and cold, the power cuts frequent — a whole nation plunged into a world of adjustments. she speaks t0 him playfully for david, not yet two, it's mostly a game. that's how his parents

prefer to keep it, especially when sirens wail and missiles fall. she laughs it's 8:30, a power cut is coming. it's time for bed. he chats in ukrainian ah... 0h. here we go. yes. so there we are. it'sjust 9:10, and it's a few minutes late, but the power cut has begun. after months of this, the fear and the novelty have long gone. this is how millions of ukrainians have learned to spend their evenings — unfazed, organised.

this war on energy is notjust about ukraine's power stations. it's about the entire infrastructure, the grid that keeps this vast country with electricity and heating. and it's that grid that has been hit over and over again since october. we're off down a rather bumpy road to see a piece of that grid now, and, again, we can't tell you where it is. this is serhiy�*s substation, the place where he's worked for 30 years. since september, he's watched it being demolished bit by bit.

six separate attacks. he speaks ukrainian four months ago, he saw a kamikaze drone destroy the control room and his office, knocking the whole substation offline, cutting power to millions of people. the attackers knew exactly what they were doing. the substation�*s 750 kilovolt transformers

won't be easy to replace. they weigh 300 tons and take months to produce. only three or four countries in the world make them. one of them is russia. ukraine is scouring the globe, looking for substitutes. we're far from this war�*s front lines, but everyone who works here feels like a soldier. in this forest of machinery, there's a quiet, steely determination. do you feel angry? he replies in ukrainian hate. for who?

we travel on, south towards front line communities under regularfire. ukraine's battalion of engineers racing from one repairjob to the next. he speaks in ukrainian this happens all the time, volodymyr tells me. we're on our way to a village shelled just last night. the power lines are down — again. the repairs won't take long, but the men know they'll be back. the battle to keep ukraine connected takes many forms. repairing wires, diverting power, concealing what is and isn't working.

it's a constant struggle, fraught with danger. distant explosion. he speaks ukrainian in the nearby village, the sound of artillery has the mayor ducking for cover. how long do you think you can carry on living here, in this situation? or do people want to leave?

in places where the front lines have moved, there's other work to do. they chat in ukrainian here, teams are busy reconnecting towns and villages cut off behind russian lines for months. where the army has been, the engineers must follow.

he instructs them in ukrainian fedir is another veteran. his home town is under regular attack, so his wife and grandchildren are living in poland. he's out in the field every day. pylon by pylon, cable by cable, connections are re—established. these are battered places, scarred by recent conflict. fresh graves speak of long, difficult months and long, difficult lives. the engineers wait as emergency teams go ahead,

inspecting the ground, looking for discarded weapons. it's slow, painstaking work. how long do you think it would take to fix everything?

and while the country waits, it simply copes. city streets echoing to the sound of generators. mobile phones lighting the way. life somehow continuing. and a mounting sense that ukraine has, for now, weathered the storm. this battle is finely balanced between russia's ability to inflict damage and ukraine's efforts to repair it. to give people just enough power to get by. those who run the grid have no illusions about the struggles ahead. russia's failed to...

..to take down our system or to... ..cause big disturbance in our system. having said that, unfortunately, they are gradually destroying very important items of equipment in our grid, which takes time to be restored. and yet, despite all of this damage, as you travel around this country, it becomes obvious that ukraine is not on its knees. we were prepared. and we were very resolved to win this particular battle. we have no other way but to win, because if we lose, if our system collapses, that would mean suffering of tens of millions of people during wintertime. we cannot... we cannot allow that.

when i am asked this question, i often say, "not on my watch." and if somebody told me before that our power grid could stand, like, 1,000 missiles and drones and still run... ..and still deliver power to consumers, i would probably not believe it, but now we know that we are resilient and we are much more ready now for the new attacks than we have been on 10th of october. russia thought it would break ukraine. but its campaign isn't working. half the grid may be in tatters, but in helmets and body armour, these men are keeping it alive. the war�*s terrible cost is evident wherever you look. the sacrifices have been immense. but power, the lifeblood

of a nation, still reaches across the land. hello. well, it certainly doesn't look like you'll need your umbrella this weekend, but then again, it's not going to be all that sunny. in fact, often cloudy, both on saturday and sunday. but i am confident a few

sunny spells will develop during the course of the day. but take a look at that shield of cloud spreading off the atlantic right across the uk. this is also quite mild air, which is riding around an area of high pressure that has established itself across a large chunk of europe. but around this high we've got that wind blowing and it's pushing in the milder atmosphere towards us. so this air mass, mild air mass will be in place across the uk through the course of the weekend and into the week ahead. no frost first thing in the morning on saturday. in fact, farfrom it. temperatures typically around about five, six, seven degrees celsius, perhaps even higher than that in one or two spots. but the cloud will be thick, in fact, really overcast in some areas first thing. but then the clouds will break. i suspect the best sunny spells will be to the east of scotland, the east of the pennines. but in one or two other areas, the sun will poke through the clouds as well. 13 degrees, so actually relatively mild even for the time of the year. the high pressure is still with us on sunday,

although it is shifting a little bit towards more central parts of europe. but the weather isn't going to be changing an awful lot. however, the breaks in the cloud may appear in different places on sunday, and that's actually really difficult to forecast. it does look as though it's also going to be just a shade cooler, not that you'll notice around about ten or 11 degrees celsius. now that high pressure will continue to drift a little bit further towards the east into monday. that does mean it opens the gates to low pressure and also weather fronts, but they will be kept at bay even on monday. and the weather isn't expected to change — again around nine, 10 to 12 degrees celsius as we head towards tuesday and wednesday. with that high pressure continuing to shift further east, these weather fronts will eventually win and arrive. and we think that around wednesday, wednesday night into thursday, that rain will arrive. so until around about tuesday, possibly wednesday. for some of us, the weather's looking dry.

but after that, the second half of the week is looking cloudy with rain at times. enjoy the bright weather. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm monika plaha with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. hope and despair in turkey and syria as the painstaking search for survivors after the earthquakes continues. on the second and the third day after the earthquake, they were finding a lot of people. they're hardly finding anyone now — almost no—one now. more than 23,000 people are dead and millions are in desperate need of aid. we visit a hospital overwhelmed by the quakes. this overwhelmed by the quakes. is one of the hospital still this is one of the hospitals still standing but all they know about some of the children that have been brought in is which pile of rubble they were pulled from. we'll have all the very latest

on the rescue effort.