mariupol this is bbc world news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories... the head of russia's wagner group, claims its forces now surround most of bakhmut — the eastern ukrainian city that's been the focus of intense fighting. more schoolgirls in iran have been targeted, in apparent poison gas attacks the united nations and iran reach an agreement that would allow un officials to carry out further inspections of tehran�*s nuclear programme. the only thing that matters is that we are able to inspect, that we are able to account for every gram of enriched material that is there. and this is the spirit of the exchanges, and we have been working satisfactorily in that regard.

prince harry describes writing his memoir as an act of service — he says he hopes sharing details of his life will help others. once the book came out i felt... ..i felt incredibly free. i felt a huge weight off my shoulders. hello and welcome to bbc world news. russian and ukrainian forces are still fighting in the streets of bakhmut — which russia has been trying to capture for several months. the deputy mayor of the city has told the bbc that the 4,000 civilians still living there — out of an original population of 75,000 — have no gas, electricity or water. thousands of russian troops have died trying

to take the eastern city. if it falls, it would be the first russian victory of note in more than 6 months. our diplomatic correspondent, james landale, reports from kyiv. this is bakhmut, or at least what's left of it, after some of the fiercest fighting since russia invaded ukraine. munitions explode. for more than six months, as the bbc has reported, ukrainian forces have held off a ferocious onslaught. but now russian commanders are growing increasingly confident, including the leader of the mercenaries known as the wagner group, which have been at the heart of the assault. translation: we have - almost surrounded bakhmut. there's only one road that remains in and out of the city, the pincers are closing. before, we were fighting against the professional ukrainian army, but now we fight against old men and boys. ukrainian forces are still defending

the city street by street and reports suggest reinforcements are being sent in. but these russian troops, say the ukrainian army, is destroying bridges like these, potentially to prepare for what western analysts call a "controlled fighting withdrawal" from parts of the city. local officials insist ukraine still controls bakhmut, but they accept there is now fighting in the streets. translation: the city is almost destroyed, i not a single building has remained untouched. currently there is no communication in the city so it's cut off. the russians are shelling everything. they want to destroy bakhmut like they did with mariupol. for sergei shoigu, russia's defence minister, making a flying visit to his forces in eastern ukraine, seizing bakhmut would be a rare military victory for him and his bosses in the kremlin. and perhaps a much—needed diplomatic

boost after an international audience in india laughed at russia's foreign minister. the war which we are trying to stop, and which was launched against us using ukraine... audience laughs. ..ukrainian people... but for now, ukrainian fighters on the ground in bakhmut still seem ready to fight their invaders every inch of the way, with russia paying a much higher and bloodier price. will be back with james in a bit now... we're joined now by matthew schmidt, director of the international affairs programme at the university of new haven in connecticut and former professor of strategic planning at the us army command. thank you so much for coming the programme. wejust heard of the situation they're in bakhmut what is your assessment of what is going on? my

your assessment of what is going on? my assessment is that we have two keepin my assessment is that we have two keep in mind that, like your correspondent said, this would be the first to victory in six months. if you look at everything else that was said in that segment, what you find is that this is not yet victory, but possible victory, is a huge his symbolic success for russia, but not necessarily a critical military success. that is really the key take away here. what really the key take away here. what we learn from _ really the key take away here. what we learn from tactics _ really the key take away here. what we learn from tactics being used by russia? . , . we learn from tactics being used by russia? ., , ., . russia? that is an excellent question- — russia? that is an excellent question. what _ russia? that is an excellent question. what we - russia? that is an excellent question. what we know - russia? that is an excellent question. what we know is. russia? that is an excellent. question. what we know is that russians have been trying to take bakhmut for weeks, russians have been trying to take bakhmut forweeks, months. russians have been trying to take bakhmut for weeks, months. they have been essentially using wave attacks. they have had an enormous casualty rate. this is in a sense of why even if ukraine loses the territory of the town, they are winning because they are out performing the russian troops. ukraine is preparing for a

longer—term objective. they are trying to kill more russians than they are losing on their own site. they are trained to force the russians to expend ammunition at extremely high rates and to lose equipment. in all three of those objectives on the ukrainians that have been met. so whatever happens on the map, when you colour in a new section of the map pink or red for russia, those other three variables remain on the ukrainian side. i believe he recently has it been to the country. let's look a bit longer term. was the feeling on the ground how long this will last with mac nearly everyone we spoke with thinks that the war will last at least another year.— that the war will last at least another year. they are sort of preparing _ another year. they are sort of preparing themselves - another year. they are sort of preparing themselves for - another year. they are sort of preparing themselves for a i another year. they are sort of. preparing themselves for a much longer war. the morale in the country is extraordinary. president biden�*s visit was seen as a kind of early victory. it was seen as a signal that ukraine was fully

accepted into the western orbit. fully accepted as a democracy and that they could trust that the us, the leader of the west could be there for them throughout the length of this war. ., ,. ., , of this war. fascinating insight. thank you _ of this war. fascinating insight. thank you very _ of this war. fascinating insight. thank you very much, - of this war. fascinating insight. | thank you very much, matthew. crossing back not to james who is in kyiv. we had ordered a bit of the assessment of the morale in kyiv. give us a bit of context about this battle in bakhmut and why it matters? , ., , battle in bakhmut and why it matters? , , ., matters? this battle has been going on for over six _ matters? this battle has been going on for over six months _ matters? this battle has been going on for over six months now. - matters? this battle has been going on for over six months now. the - matters? this battle has been going on for over six months now. the fallj on for over six months now. the fall of bakhmut has been long predicted, it has not happened so far. you are right, there is a? about this. why are both sides taking it so seriously, why are they allowing so many soldiers to die to try and take it and defend it. because if talk to western analysts, officials they will all tell you that bakhmut has

little strategic value in itself. it is more of a garrison town, not a transport hub. it does not hold a particular geographic position that is militarily significant. but, the russians desperately need a victory and they have chosen bakhmut to be the place where they are most likely to try and do that so they are throwing thousands of russian troops at it and thousands are dying in the process. they have yet to succeed. they also hope want to be able to take bakhmut in an attempt to try and get a springboard, if you like, to further territorial gains in the donbas. that is questioned and challenged by military experts to try and say taking bakhmut will not necessarily mean you will take other cities in the area. that is for russia. what about ukraine? why is it defending it so hard at great

cost, as well. the answer for that is fairly straightforward. ukraine is fairly straightforward. ukraine is using this fight to tie up russian forces, to stop them from going elsewhere, it is using this battle to, frankly, killed russian shoulders. to degree russia's army as much as possible. hundreds and thousands of men are dying in the city, as i said, on the russian side. and it is a huge cost for the russian army. so the ukrainians are making the russians pay very dearly for every foot on every yard of territory the gain in the city. thank you very much, james. going to run now. hundreds of schoolgirls in iran have been targeted, in apparent poison gas attacks. schools in at least 15 provinces were attacked on saturday. the incidents have been happening

since november but have spread in scope and scale over the past week. nobody has been arrested and public anger is continuing to grow. you may find some of this report by parham ghobadi distressing. mass poisoning of schoolgirls in iran, possibly with toxic gas. numerous schools in several provinces across the country were attacked on saturday. students who have fallen ill are being taken into an ambulance in karaj, a city near capital, tehran. this girl says she can't breathe. here in southern iran, some are taken into a hospital while coughing. hospitals are packed. a girl shouts, the principal is nowhere to be found. a student from tehran told us despite the smell of gas, they were kept indoors for a while.

translation: they wouldn't let us leave the classrooms first, - although everyone was smelling the gas when we finally went to the courtyard. they wouldn't let us leave the school. asking us not to worry and they said the smell would go away. they feared the news would make it to the media. here, an ambulance is seen inside the school, but worried parents are kept behind the closed doors. parents are furious. they chanted, "we don't want a child killing regime." it shows they think hardline elements backed by the regime are behind this to prevent girls from going to school. concerned mothers have staged a protest in tehran. one says they were dispersed from the ministry of education. but the iranian president put the blame on the west, calling the school poisoning hybrid warfare. translation: in this psychological. and media warfare regarding schools, they are seeking to frighten our

students and their parents. a distressed mother in central town of kashan shouts at an official, why are you doing this to our children? some suspect this is a revenge attack because the schoolgirls joined a protest that swept the country in september. girls in iran have been fighting forfreedom. now they are fighting for their breath. parham ghobadi, bbc news. staying with iran. the united nations and iranian authorities have announced an agreement that would allow un officials to carry out further inspections of tehran's nuclear programme. the announcement was made at the end of a 2—day visit to the capital, by the head of international atomic energy agency, rafael grossi. his trip followed the discovery of traces of uranium, enriched to near weapons—grade level, at an underground nuclear plant in iran. here's mr grossi speaking earlier after he arrived back in vienna.

in the first place, the interactions we have, the inspections and what is expected from iran. in the second place, the issues related to some of the questions about which, you know, locations where we have been trying to find clarifications from iran. and finally, very importantly, our ability to establish monitoring and verification measures that we believe are indispensable as a very concrete, very tangible results of this important mission. the bbc�*s bethany bell has been monitoring events for us in vienna. iran and the iaea have issued a joint statement which says that iran is prepared to give more

information and more access to un nuclear inspectors who've been looking into past nuclear work by iran. and this announcement was made after a two day visit by the head of the iaea, rafael grossi. and he said this included reinstalling monitoring equipment in some sites, including cameras. now, the iaea has also, in a separate development, been concerned about the discovery of traces of highly enriched uranium at one of iran's iran's underground nuclear site at fordo. and the concern about this is because weapons grade enriched uranium is 90%. and what was discovered at fordow was 84%. and we know now, mr grossi says, that there will be 50% more

inspections at fordow to try to get to the bottom of this. this iran says that its nuclear programme is peaceful. and although it did acknowledge that there could have been what it called unintended fluctuations at fordow, mr grossi said he hoped that this was a new phase in relations between iran and the iaea. he said he had got concrete steps that had been agreed here, but other countries may be more sceptical, saying that iran has made such promises in the past and not delivered. will it deliver now is the big question. we will be keeping an eye on that question and thank you for bethany for that. here in the uk, the daily telegraph newspaper has published more leaked whatsapp messages about the former health secretary, matt hancock. they appear to show that mr hancock and his staff agonised for hours over whether or not he broke covid

guidance when he kissed his aide. mr hancock also criticises the then chancellor's eat out to help out scheme. for the latest here's our political correspondent helen catt. well, the latest batch are selected messages from over several months. and, of course, it's worth bearing in mind that the infection picture was changing over that time. but it seems to suggest there's a suggestion in a message from the cabinet secretary in october that borisjohnson hadn't been convinced of the need for action about a week before the second lockdown in england happened, there were also messages from borisjohnson, including one injuly 2020, in which he complains of a general collapse in social distancing at home and in social settings and the need to get absolutely militant in hotspot areas. now, of course, that was just over a month after he had attended a birthday gathering for which he was then later fined for breaking the rules. an earlier sets of leaked exchanges, a separate set appear to show matt hancock, the health secretary, spending several hours going back

and forth with a press aide trying to determine if he had broken covid guidance, which, of course, he had helped set and encouraged others to follow, when it emerged that he had kissed another aide in his office. a spokesman for borisjohnson said it wasn't appropriate to comment on these leaks. the public inquiry provides the right process for these issues to be examined. that was echoed by a spokesman for matt hancock, who said there was absolutely no public interest case for this huge breach. all the materials for the book had already been made available to that inquiry. he said that releasing them in this way gives a partial biased account to suit an anti—lockdown agenda. people in leicestershire, northamptonshire and oxfordshire reported hearing a loud bang at lunchtime today, with some people saying their homes shook. let's take a listen to the moment where it happen. it is very short.

well, it turns out they had heard a sonic boom. the ministry of defence says raf typhoon jets were authorised to fly at supersonic speed after contact was lost with a civilian aircraft. a sonic boom is caused when planes fly faster than the speed of sound. police in australia say they've made what's thought to be the country's biggest ever drug bust, seizing cocaine with a street value of a billion us dollars. the joint operation with the united states has led to twelve arrests linked to a mexican cartel. from sydney, phil mercer reports. australian police say the drugs were intercepted by us authorities off the coast of ecuador in november. the large haul of cocaine was bound for western australia. investigators substituted the illicit cargo with plaster of paris, a fine, white powder.

the shipment was dropped into the indian ocean, west of perth, and monitored by drones and helicopters. over a number of weeks, our officers and other offices assisted to reconstruct those identical packages and dropped 1.2 tonnes of those drugs into the ocean a0 miles off the coast. over the next few days, the police watched as a criminal syndicate with alleged links to a mexican cartel used two boats to find and retrieve the consignment. surveillance images show one of the vessels towing the other after it had washed up on a beach where two men were arrested. others suspected members of the gang were later detained at a harbour in perth, the western australian state capital. the police also stopped a vehicle on a highway several hundred kilometres away where they found

a large amount of cash. 12 people have been arrested, including a 39—year—old man from the united states. law enforcement authorities say australia's appetite for illegal drugs makes it a potentially aggressive destination ——lucarative, for traffickers, but not this time. this haul is estimated to be about half of australia's annual consumption of cocaine. the government is due to announce soon where it wants to build a ground—breaking power station — one where the carbon dioxide produced at the plant is captured and then buried, which stops most of the gas — which is a main driver of climate change — being released into the atmosphere. our environment correspondent jonah fisher has more. the story of keadby is the story of uk's energy past, present and possible future.

because for all the talk of wind and solar, there is a problem that keeps the industry up at night. on those days when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, when it's cold, when it's still, there are going to need to be other sources of power that are going to keep the lights switched on. batteries, nuclear and hydrogen will form part of the solution, but the government has also committed to building a new type of power station, one that continues burning fossil fuels that got us into this mess. to take a closer look i climbed up one of keadby�*s two carbon dioxide emitting gas power plants. from here on top of the cooling tower you get a real sense of the energy transition here in keadby. over there on the horizon those mounds are the leftovers from when there was a coal—fired power station here. you can see the wind turbines along the horizon. and just down there that could very well be the site for the uk's first ever gas—fired power station

where the carbon dioxide is captured. the idea behind a carbon capture power station is that instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it contributes to climate change, the gas is captured and transported underground. in this case beneath the north sea. we are looking at probably double the cost of an unabated gas—powered station. that high cost has held carbon capture back in the past. there are those who argue the money would be better spent on more renewables and batteries. if you translate pound for pound, you will get a better output from a power plant that functions based on renewables and is supported by storage than the fossil fuel power plant that has a carbon capture attached to it. the demolition in 1991 of the towers of keadby�*s coal—fired power station

was the end of an era. now the village awaots a government decision as to what comes next. green pioneer or costly white elephant? keadby�*s first carbon capture gas plant will either be here or further north on teesside. jonah fisher, bbc news in keadby. prince harry has described writing his book spare as an act of service and says he hopes that sharing details of his life will help others. in a livestreamed conversation with a trauma specialist the prince said he's not a victim and has never looked for sympathy. here's our royal correspondent daniela relph. good morning, harry. good morning. for an hour and a half, they talked. it had the feel of a therapy session. prince harry on grief, family and trauma. i certainly don't see myself as a victim. yeah. erm, i'm really grateful to be

able to share my story. i do not and i have never looked for sympathy in this. you had to buy a ticket to watch the online conversation. each one came with a copy of spare. harry describes writing the book as an out of service and spoke ——act of, of feeling trapped within the royal family. i always felt slightly different to the rest of my family. i felt strange being in this... container. and i know that my mum felt the same. now 38 years old, dad to a son and a daughter, he vowed not to repeat what he saw as past mistakes of. i as a father feel a huge responsibility to ensure that i don't pass on any traumas or any, i guess, negative experiences that i've had as a kid or as a man growing up. harry was candid about his own mental health. the doctor even diagnosed him

as having attention deficit disorder, a condition that affects behaviour, and they spoke of using psychedelic medication. i started doing it recreationally and then started to realise how good it was for me. and i would say that it is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me. yeah. and helped me deal with the traumas and the pains of the past. on serving in afghanistan, not all of us agreed with the war, he said, but we did what we were trained to do. there was, though, nothing about his current relationship with the royal family, no questions on whether he would be at his father's combination. ——and as to his wife meghan, he described her as an exceptional human being to whom he was eternally grateful. daniela relph, bbc news.

—— coronation. that's all for me. this is bbc news bye—bye. hello, there. it's been a rather grey and gloomy saturday for many. a few scattered showers around as well. take a look at this weather watcher picture from thurnby in leicester, fairly indicative of the day. now, if you take a look at the satellite picture, you can see how extensive the cloud has been. there were some breaks across north—east england and parts of scotland, but also some showers. and drawing your attention to this speckled cloud in the far north—east, potential for some snow showers waiting in the wings to arrive later on monday. so, through the next few hours, we keep that blanket of cloud for many, some coastal showers out to the west and east, perhaps more persistent ones in the far north—east of scotland. but because of the cloud around, on the whole, temperatures should just stay up into low single figures, but it's going to be a chilly start to our sunday morning. once again, another grey and gloomy

day, almost a repeat performance of saturday's story. there will be some coastal showers around, on the whole, largely quiet and temperatures sitting between 6—9 celsius, just that little bit colder in the northern isles as that cold air starts to descend. so, arctic air pushing its way steadily southwards as we go into monday. so, really from monday onwards, you're going to start to notice the difference to the feel of our weather. if you haven't already heard, it's going to turn cold and windy, and snow and ice could be an issue, particularly to the far north and east. so, it's likely as we go through the day on monday, this weather front will introduce the colder air. it's going to turn the rain ahead of the front into snow showers behind it, particularly across the far north and east of scotland and north—east england. to the south of that weather front we'll still keep those temperatures around generally 7—9 celsius. but then that sinks its way steadily south, so we start off on tuesday

with some sunny spells, cold and frosty. and, yes, there will be further snow showers across northern and eastern coasts, and those temperatures are going to struggle, 4—5 celsius, but factor in the strength and the direction of the wind, it certainly will feel noticeably colder. so, certainly you'll need to wrap up warm. it looks likely that we are going to see that cold snap continuing through the middle part of the week as well. so, if you've got outdoor travel plans monday into tuesday, do be aware that there's a potential for snow and ice in the north—east.

this is bbc news, the headlines... russian and ukrainian forces are fighting in the streets of bakhmut but russia does not control the city, its deputy mayor has said. 4,000 civilians are living in shelters without access to electricity or water. hundreds of school girls in iran have been targeted in apparent poison gas attacks. schools in at least 15 provinces were attacked on saturday. the incidents have been happening since november but have spread in scope and scale over the past week. the united nations and iran reach an agreement that would allow un officials to carry out further inspections of tehran's nuclear programme following talks between iranian officials and the head of the un nuclear watchdog. in a new interview, prince harry describes writing his memoir