this is bbc news, the headlines: millions of nigerians have been voting in their country's most competitive election since military rule ended there more than two decades ago. in some places, especially in the south of the country, voting has not even started due to severe delays and violent disruptions. china's plans for peace in ukraine cause ripples around the world — president zelensky says he wants to hear more — and the leader of russia's key ally belarus announces plans to fly to beijing. governments in london and dublin say talks over a brexit deal covering northern ireland have been �*positive�* — raising hopes of an imminent new agreement on trade. a winter storm brings rain and snow

to southern california, the likes of which hasn't been seen there for more than three decades. coastal areas are also under flood warning due to high winds. you're watching bbc news. now, a newsnight and ukrainecast special — ukraine: one yearon hello. it's exactly a year since russia began its full scale invasion of ukraine and it's changed the world. siren wails explosion russia invades in a major military assault by land, sea and air. - without provocation, without justification, without necessity.

this is a premeditated attack. our worst fears have now come true, and all our warnings have proved tragically accurate. the numbers of people escaping this war will keep going up. the question of how best to help them won't go away. in moscow tonight, hundreds took to the streets. "no to war," they chanted. the kremlin believes it will win a trial of endurance. ukraine doesn't want to wait to find out. come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities come in the name of peace, come with ukrainian symbols to support ukraine, to support freedom, to support life. to defend russia and our people,

we shall, of course, use all means at our disposal. i am not bluffing. now i'm all alone. my son was young, 27 years old. he wanted to stay alive. ukraine is still advancing, still hunting down russian positions. winning back kherson has boosted national morale, but a complete victory over russia remains elusive. we'll fight. we will survive. yeah. we're broadcasting a special program to mark one year of this conflict, bringing together newsnight and the bbc podcast ukrainecast here in the bbc radio

theatre in london. we have with us an audience, many of whom are ukrainian people who fled their own country in the last 12 months to seek sanctuary here in the uk. as of this month, the unhcr says there are around 8 million refugees from ukraine right across europe. vladimir putin's war has created the continent's biggest refugee crisis since the second world war. in this programme, we're going to reflect on the last year with ukraine defiantly unconquered and ask how might this war be brought to an end? alongside me is vitaly shevchenko, my co—host on ukrainecast, who who grew up in the southeast of ukraine, whose own parents had to escape from there. he is russia editor of bbc monitoring, which is the bbc service that watches and analyses

media across the globe. also here is my newsnight colleague mark urban, who is our diplomatic editor. as you'll hear, members of our audience tonight are mostly women. they left their husbands, dads, brothers and sons behind in ukraine in order to help with the war effort. so let's hear, first of all, from anastasia, who is originally from kharkiv. hello. thanks for being with us. you came here with your 18 year old and your 16 year old. yes. i wonder if you could describe what the last year has been like for yourfamily. so, yeah, as you said, we are from kharkiv. so the war started right at our doorstep basically. and the first few days i think we all thought it's going to be finished very soon and we didn't want to go anywhere because it's our home. then we moved further,

deeper into ukraine. also thinking it's going to be safer. but then the war reached this place as well. and then we just went to europe basically first to stay with ourfriends in italy because they invited us. and again, we thought we'll come back in a month, the war is going to be over, but it wasn't. and so i had to think about myself, about my kids�* future. and so yeah, we arrived to uk in september. what has been the hardest part for you? um, i think the hardest for me personally is not being able to know what's happening tomorrow, not having any plans, not being able to think about the future.

anastasia, thank you very much for talking to us. we appreciate it. thank you for being with us. let me bring in ilya. you are also from kharkiv. it's sewn on your sweatshirt. and you came last year aged just 17. yeah. and you've had to grow up so fast. yeah. i mean, what has the year been like for you? it didn't feel real because being so far away from your home town, as that has been mentioned, not knowing what's happening to your loved ones, you're just in here, you just feel safe and you understand that that's not how your parents feel and you can't do anything about it. so your parents are still in ukraine? they're still in kharkiv, and they never left. so do you feel some guilt because you are safe? yeah, exactly. i'm carrying on with my life. i studied in the university of warwick. i'm surrounded by all of the support and people who are around me and they're always here for me. but i know that i can't be there for my parents. and that's what's terrifying.

i think every ukrainian right now and there are family members who are very far away, just understand that you should you should have been there with them. you should have supported them, or probably in the case of something happening, you could have helped them in some way. but you just understand that you can't do it. but presumably your mum and dad are pleased that you are safe? they are. and i think that's the only thing that keeps me going and that's the only thing that keeps every ukrainian going right now, it's hope for the better future for your family. thank you so much. thank you for being with us. vitali, let me ask you, first of all, vitali, how would you describe the last 12 months? it's one of those periods that divides your life into before and after. and since this war broke out, it feels like your life has been put on hold.

there's this atrocity that's happening at your home, and it's very difficult to focus on anything else, really. what makes it even more frustrating is the fact that there's no end in sight. and if we were to think about when this is over, what next? that also is a huge question mark in itself, because how momentum this war is, it completely redefines the rules according to which the whole world lived. in terms of momentum, let me bring in mark. how how would you assess what phase this conflict is at one year on? well, i think what we saw a year ago was a kind of reckless

military intervention, launched on all kinds of optimism bias in the kremlin and frankly, some ideas that must have been delusional in terms of the picture that vladimir putin was getting about how russian forces would be received, how hard a task it would be to take a substantial proportion of the country. and obviously, if you go through the possible objectives of what was going to be done, you can say that most of them have not only not been met but are impossible to meet, but there remain a couple which have been met. so the so—called land bridge from russia through to crimea, occupying the southern part of ukraine and consolidating the hold in the donbas. so those have been met and we're now in a position where in a sense the russian army, based on what we've seen so far, cannot win, but it can avoid losing that limited gain that they've made. the ukrainian army, i think,

can still win in the sense of recovering most of that occupied territory in the coming months. but if it doesn't, then we will probably be in stalemate. so that's the situation we're in. russia does not seem to be able to win this. i think ukraine has a limited possibility in the coming weeks and months. but if that doesn't happen, come the late summer say, it'll be very hard to see it as anything other than a stalemate which consumes a huge number of lives but cannot deliver a decisive military result. no one can see into a crystal ball. but what do you think might happen next? well, we don't have a crystal ball, which would help us predict what's about to happen. all we know is that both sides are very firmly entrenched in their positions, both literally and metaphorically speaking.

russia, it seems, still has a significant amount of missiles which it can fire at ukraine. manpower as well. ukraine, on the other hand, feels at this moment in time emboldened, empowered, confident. so what this tells us is that this war is likely to go on in the foreseeable future. well, it is about to enter its second year. so far, there are at least 100,000 people dead and wounded on both sides. some estimates suggest many more. just last week, the boss of nato said the conflict could go on for many, many years. today, china laid out the framework for what it said was a peace plan, which proposes a cease fire and talks and an end to sanctions against russia. president zelensky says the security of ukraine and of europe can only be

assured by a total expulsion of russian forces from every bit of ukraine. any territorial compromises would make us a weaker state, he told the bbc. is that realistic? what about the wider debate about how this war might be brought to a close? we're going to talk to some more ukrainian people who are with us this evening. maria romanenko, hello. thank you very much for being with us. i wonder what victory looks like to you, maria. i very much agree that the only way to peace is forfull withdrawal of forces from ukraine and return to the borders that we had pre 2014. so that's including crimea and the donbas. putin showed quite clearly that he is not interested in peace. so the only way to make that happen is to give ukraine more weapons and impose more sanctions both on russia and on countries that support russia.

so putin needs to be brought to his knees, and that's the only way for ukraine to continue existing and to continue being independent. let me bring in another maria. hello to you. thank you for being with us. good evening. what does victory look like for you? the same. i think that ukraine should be in its borders like 1991, of course, with crimea and donbas. and this is the absolute victory. so when independence was declared, that is ukraine? yeah, that is. there is still ukraine. ukrainian borders. is that realistic? listen, i hope so, because we never had so much support from all the world like europe and so on and so on.

and we have more and more weapons and we become more and more strong. and that's excellent and we're grateful for that support. and i absolutely agree that now after one year, i can't see how russia, how putin can win this war. but i clearly see how ukraine can win this war with support of the whole world. and of course, i feel it and i say it with that borders from 1991. right. thank you, maria. thank you. mark, let me bring you in here. there were brief negotiations brokered by turkey in march, april last year. we've had this this framework from the chinese today. at what point might negotiations begin, do you think? i think it's not really a proposition that has any real chance of lift off until both sides feel that carrying on with warfare is no longer productive.

and clearly, as we've got a sense on the ukrainian side, there is still a feeling that they could recover much of their occupied territory by continuing the conflict. i do think, though, it's important to address limits and limits in terms of western will and ability. there are limits on particular types of weaponry and missiles and things where the west can't go much faster. indeed, they are worried about the next few months in certain regards. but then whenever i speak to a politician or hear a politician being being interviewed on the airwaves and you say, is the west support for ukraine really open ended? of course they say, "yes." well, and indeed, when you look at the pinch points, things like artillery ammunition, some of the missiles, they are taking steps for long term supply. but there's a bit of a problem in the next few months before some of those long term supplies kick in. some of them won't even start for a year or two. so that's a bit of an issue.

the other one is about will and what is victory? the question you asked, which is really obviously central. it is explicit, recently from the us, germany, france, that they do not support the reconquest of crimea. so at the point that diplomacy becomes a real option because of mutual exhaustion, you know, western countries will not necessarily support ukraine in getting back to the 91 borders. right. iwonder, could president zelensky ever give away any territory in exchange for peace, given the sacrifices that have been made this last year? well, that particular proposition it feels wrong to a ukrainian, after all that's happened. given the acute sense of injustice and senselessness of what's going on, to trade your territory,

to trade your values and principles and future for a pause in fighting, yes, that can be useful for saving lives. but longer term, if you have plans to exist as an independent nation, that feels unproductive and wrong. you mentioned the word justice. and if we look further ahead into the future, i would like to ask some of you how important it is to you to have some sort of justice for those who've lost loved ones in this war, lost homes, lostjobs, livelihoods, lost whole parts of their homeland, your homeland. there are investigations into russian war crimes in train, as we know in places like bucha. is it realistic to think that one day president putin and perhaps his military commanders

will be standing in front of some kind of war crimes tribunal? let me talk to more of you, if i may. hello. you are a doctor. you worked outside kyiv. you're now a doctor here in london. not yet. you hope to be, yes. how important is seeing some kind of tribunal or somebody before an international criminal court to you? it's definitely important. it definitely should be provided. this war is about black and white and it is about violation of international law. so the evil should be recognised and it should be punished. but on the personal level, after all the damages, after all this struggle, after all the sacrifices, i think that all ukrainians

and ukraine deserve the justice. and it must be done in different ways. it should be a fair law. it should be a fair tribunal. there should be reparations. and ideally, the russian federation should recognise what they have done and they should realise what is wrong and what is right. and so it's important you think for russian people to see that, to acknowledge that? yeah, to acknowledge that, yes. this is this ideally what we would like to see in the future. in order to prevent any sort of such situations in the future. when war broke out, you left where you were from, you went back, you saw the damage, the material damage to buildings. what impact did that have on you? well, after my mother

and grandmother managed to evacuate from the front line in kyiv, after two weeks when i had no connection with them and i even didn't know if they are still alive. i thought that nothing material has no matterfor me, it doesn't mean anything. but when i came back in a few months to my hometown, kyiv, and i saw these destroyed buildings, bridges, hospital, my school, my kindergarten, local bakery, i realised that this is not just destroyed buildings. this is my childhood memories. this is a part of my life. part of your identity. yes, part of my identity. and this symbol. what they have done and our lives were ruined by this war. thank you.

marianna, hello. let me have a chat with you. thank you for being with us. in terms of your last 12 months, what has it been like for you? it's been a really hard time, and i think the hardest part of it all was to accept and to realise that all our pre war life is in the past and we might never have it back. but we have to move on. and i think for me personally, the hardest part is in the morning when i wake up and i reach out for my phone and i'm praying not to see any bad news ever again. and i suspect there are many people here in this room who will absolutely relate to that. thank you, mariana. how realistic is it, do you think, that president putin or his military commanders may face some kind

of tribunal in the future? well, i certainly don't think we should think it's impossible. i mean, people thought it was impossible in yugoslavia when when the conflict was going on there in the nineties. and it did eventually happen. you know, slobodan milosevic, for example, himself, ended up in the hague. so getting hold of people, clearly some of the soldiers responsible for the crimes north of kyiv were captured and have been put on trial. when it comes to leadership, one of the scenarios we didn't talk about was whether a collapse of the russian army would lead to some sort of political implosion. once again, that must be a cherished hope for ukrainians and their supporters. we do know from the experience of libya and yugoslavia that indictment of gaddafi and milosevic gave them nothing to lose. they had to fight on. it's also true that it means the people around them have no interest in precipitating the collapse of that regime because they themselves might then end up on a plane to the hague, as it were, as well.

do you think it's realistic? i think it really must happen. you will remember, victoria, when ukrainecast interviewed numerous victims of such atrocities, people who have witnessed them first—hand. and we ask them, why do you think people of this day and age, why do they. impunity allows them to do it. would there be a groundswell_ impunity allows them to do it. would there be a groundswell for— impunity allows them to do it. would there be a groundswell for some - impunity allows them to do it. hmlc there be a groundswell for some kind of tribunal in the future? figs there be a groundswell for some kind of tribunal in the future?— of tribunal in the future? as we heard from _ of tribunal in the future? as we heard from some _ of tribunal in the future? as we heard from some members - of tribunal in the future? as we heard from some members of i of tribunal in the future? as we i heard from some members of the audience, — heard from some members of the audience, that is a big hope, really. — audience, that is a big hope, really, because once this horror stops _ really, because once this horror stops the — really, because once this horror stops the big question then will be, what next? — stops the big question then will be, what next? do we move on? and take

the nuremberg tribunal, that was really— the nuremberg tribunal, that was really important to allow the world to move _ really important to allow the world to move on. and i think once this war is_ to move on. and i think once this war is over— to move on. and i think once this war is over it_ to move on. and i think once this war is over it will be really important to bring this atrocity to closure, — important to bring this atrocity to closure, enclosure will be difficult without _ closure, enclosure will be difficult without bringing people responsible for those _ without bringing people responsible for those atrocities to real justice _ for those atrocities to real 'ustice. . ~' , ., for those atrocities to real 'ustice. ., ,, , ., ., for those atrocities to real 'ustice. ., ,, ., ., for those atrocities to real 'ustice. ., ., ., justice. thank you to both of you. we are going _ justice. thank you to both of you. we are going to _ justice. thank you to both of you. we are going to pause. _ justice. thank you to both of you. we are going to pause. thank - justice. thank you to both of you. | we are going to pause. thank you justice. thank you to both of you. i we are going to pause. thank you so much for being with us on this special programme on such a significant and poignant day for you. people across the world have been marking a year since the full—scale invasion of ukraine we are going to leave you now would some of those images and sounds. big ben chimes

ukrainian national anthem we are stronger than all of this. it was a year of endurance and compassion, a year of bravery, a year of pain and hope, a year of perseverance, a year of unity, a year of invincibility. we have survived. we have not been defeated.

we will do everything to win at this year. hello. well, it certainly feels chilly out there today. cloudy in places, too, but for many of us, it's a case of blue skies across western parts of the uk. but the wind is the story today, particularly on the north sea coast. and you know, the sensation of how chilly or mild it feels is notjust to do with the temperature itself or even the wind, it's also to do with how dry the air is. and the air over us is indeed very dry at the moment, all the way from the north. it's what's called low dew point air, you might remember that from your geography. a lot of cloud you can see across many northern, central and eastern areas. these are the early evening temperatures around five degrees. then you add on that breeze, that low dew point air and look

at that in some areas, it feels like it's barely above freezing so a nippy saturday night on the way. the forecast then for saturday night, actually plenty of clear spells developing across the country. there will be that breeze again on the north sea coast, so it'll prevent the frost from forming. four degrees in newcastle and hull, but out towards northern western and some central areas, certainly a touch of frost on the way early on sunday morning. so here's sunday's weather forecast — i think more sunshine across more southern parts of the uk, but around the north east of england, perhaps the borders, one or two showers and cloudier moments are possible. the average this time of the year is still eight degrees celsius. tomorrow, less of a breeze so i think it will feel closer to eight degrees. the high pressure is still very much in charge of the weather on monday. we still have the jet stream way to the north and west of us diverting all that traffic, all these weather systems towards greenland and closer to iceland, so we're in the spell of settled weather. so the forecast then, if you're wondering about monday,

actually shows one or two showers maybe drifting into parts of lincolnshire, maybe the midlands. i think it will be a cloudier day across many parts of england and wales on monday. and those temperatures not changing an awful lot, we are talking around eight degrees, pretty much north or south. so that's monday. let's have a look at the outlook then as we head into next weekend. and you can see that the weather isn't changing an awful lot, still around single figures and the weather is certainly about the same. bye— bye.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm frankie mccamley. our top stories: millions of nigerians have been voting in their country's most competitive election since military rule ended there more than two decades ago. voting in the south of the country, is marked by long delays violent disruptions. in a televised briefing, the head of the nigerian electoral commission has said that "no one will be disenfranchised" from voting. china's plans for peace in ukraine cause ripples around the world — president zelensky says he wants to hear more — and the leader of russia's key ally belarus announces plans to fly to beijing. governments in london and dublin say talks over a brexit deal covering northern ireland have been 'positive' — raising hopes of an imminent new agreement on trade.