to an investigation into her party's finances. hello, i'm carl nasman, thanks forjoining us. we begin in ukraine, where officials say troops have recaptured three villages from russian forces in the southeast — its first gains since launching a much—anticipated counteroffensive. footage on social media — not yet verified by the bbc — shows troops hoisting the ukrainian flag in the neighbouring settlements of blahodatne and neskuchne in the donetsk region. kyiv�*s deputy defence minister said nearby makarivka was also taken. this comes just one day after president volodymyr zelensky confirmed that the counteroffensive had begun. meanwhile, a moscow court has detained a us musician on drug charges.

the court claimed michael travis leake had organized the sale of drugs to young people. leake has denied the charges and in a video shared online says he doesn't know why he was being detained. a us state department spokesperson says it is closely monitoring the case and that staff attended his court hearing on saturday. leake is the third american detained in russia the last few years. earlier i spoke about all of this with kurt volker, former us ambassador to nato and former us special representative for ukraine. thank you for taking the time to speak to us. ukraine reporting its first progress in the longawaited counteroffensive, reclaiming these small settlements. what is your reaction to that news? this is not the big part of the counteroffensive yet, this is ukraine probing to see where

the russians are able and willing to defend and where they are not, make a few gains here and make a few gains there. we will see them judge after this phase where they want to make a bigger push. interesting, these probes, as you call them, ukraine has suffered some losses in terms of casualties and military equipment like tanks. how concerning might that be to ukraine and its western allies? i do not think terribly concerning at this point. i think there is a tremendous amount of equipment that has flowed to ukraine and there will be no cost free counteroffensive. they will lose equipment and unfortunately they will lose some lives as well, but this is part of the effort of figuring out where they can move and how they can take the territory back. how prepared do you think russia is for this counteroffensive? it has been many months since we have been anticipating it. what have you potentially been seeing in terms of the way

russia has been responding? russia has built a lot of defensive lines. they have dug ditches, tank traps, so—called dragons teeth that make it hard to pass through but these are mechanical things that they can get people to do when they are not being fired at. the wheel of the russian soldiers, the will of the russian military to actually stand and fight is a very big question mark and i think that we will see the ukrainians, with superior will and capability, be able to break through. i want to ask about some reports we heard today that russia might be making some moves to take direct control of the russian linked paramilitary group the wagner group, what do you make of that? i saw that as well and i'm not surprised. that is the way this goes in the long run. this offensive to the russian

state to have an outside actor claiming to be better than the russian state and demanding that the russian state support him. eventually they will shut him down. until this point they have not done so because they actually needed his military capabilities, for instance when he was taking the city of bakhmut, they did not want him to stop him from doing that but i think the patience of the russian state has grown very thin with yevgeny prigozhin and they will be taking steps to absorb his forces and put him out of business. do you think there might be some underlying tensions as well in russia's top military brass? notjust underlying, on the surface. we hear about it quite frequently. tension between the three major military leader, the chechen leader, yevgeny prigozhin from the wagner group, and the russian ministry of defence sergei shoigu and even within the ministry of defence

there are generals that have more revulsion towards the wagner group and some which co—operate very closely with the wagner group and that creates tension within the russian military itself. another american been taken taken into custody in russia, musician michael travis leake accused of organising the sale of drugs to young people. he denied the charges. we saw that happen with the basketball star. if you're an american, you should not be in russia. they are in the midst of losing a war in ukraine and blame the united states for it and they take american citizens as hostages in order to create leverage over us policy. it does not usually work but that is their effort. i have no idea about the circumstances of this gentleman and what he was doing, it could be he is perfectly innocent,

could be he was doing something, that is not the point. the point is the russian regime is not a rule of law regime, is directed for political purposes and they will take hostages like this in order to create leverage. also allegations that another dam has been targeted or blown up by russian forces. what do you make of that and on a broader sense are dams used as part of the military strategy by russia ? definitely they are because what blowing up a dam will do is make a territory south of there impassable and so it will channel any force movements above the area of the dam where they can then anticipate what the force movements will be and be better prepared to respond to it. i also think that the fact they are blowing up these dams, the fact they're doing it means they know they are losing ground. interesting stuff as always. thank you so much for your insights.

now to australia, where an investigation is underway after 10 people were killed and 25 injured in a bus crash. local police say the bus rolled over at a roundabout in the wine region of new south wales, north of sydney. among those transported to the hospital, the 58—year—old bus driver, who has since been arrested with charges pending. local media reported that the bus had been returning from a wedding before the incident. australian prime minister anthony albanese said it was cruel that a day ofjoy for wedding attendees ended in such devastating loss. in egypt, three british tourists are missing after a fire on board a boat in the red sea around 25 kilometres — or 15 miles — from the resort of marsa alam. these are the latest pictures of the boat — we don't see any flames here but there's still a lot of smoke and clearly a lot of damage. 26 people, including 12 britons, were rescued after being on a diving cruise. the foreign office says it's supporting the british nationals.

sally nabil reports. huge fires ripped through this boat in the red sea resort of marsa alam. nearly 30 people were on board, including 15 british passengers. amateur footage shows the moments of horror as somejump to safety and are rescued. local authorities say most of the foreign visitors and the egyptian crew have been rescued, but search operations are still under way for those missing. translation: we arrived at dawn. we wake up daily at 6am and the briefing before diving is at 6.30am. during the briefing, one of the people saw smoke coming out of the boat in front of us. it was close to us, around 50 metres away. one of the people said there was light smoke, and in one or two minutes the smoke became white and heavy, then it turned black, and the fire broke out so fast because it was windy

in the morning. initial reports say an electrical fault caused the fire. but thorough investigations are a priority now to explain what exactly happened. search operations continue for those missing. but fears are growing for their safety. sally nabil, bbc news. sally nabil, bbc news, cairo. now to the uk, where two big political stories continue to develop. on sunday, nicola sturgeon, scotland's former first minister, was arrested, questioned and released, in connection with an ongoing investigation into the finances of her scottish national party. in a statement, she said says she knows "beyond doubt" that she's "innocent of any wrongdoing". it follows the arrest, back in april, of her husband, peter murrell, the former chief executive of the snp, and its former treasurer, colin beattie. both were also released without charge, pending further inquiries.

meanwhile, the uk government has been responding to boris johnson's surprise resignation as a member of parliament. on sunday, energy secretary grant shapps told the bbc that he thought the country doesn't "miss the drama" of the johnson era. later, we'll hear from the bbc�*s political editor, chris mason, but first to james cook. nicola sturgeon, for so long, front and centre in scottish politics, was arrested well away from the cameras, just after 10am. detectives questioned her as a suspect, before releasing her without charge seven hours and 15 minutes later. this evening, ms sturgeon issued a statement which was raw, blunt and defiant. "i am certain i have committed no offence," she said, describing the situation as both "a shock and deeply distressing." she thanked her supporters, saying they appreciated she would never do anything to harm either the snp or the country, and she

insisted in the strongest possible terms "that i am in fact innocent

i hope i will answer but it will be wrong and inappropriate to go to any detail that is related to what the police are currently investigating. i could not have anticipated in my worst nightmares what would have unfolded over the past few weeks. ., ., _, ., weeks. for a decade, nicola sturgeon — weeks. for a decade, nicola sturgeon and _ weeks. for a decade, nicola sturgeon and her _ weeks. for a decade, nicola sturgeon and her husband l weeks. for a decade, nicola . sturgeon and her husband were scotland's power couple. supporters hoped, some opponents feared, that ms sturgeon would lead her nation to independence. that already feels like a long time ago. james cook, bbc news, glasgow. meanwhile, the uk government has been responding

meanwhile, in westminster, a leading government minister has rejected claims by former prime minister borisjohnson, that he's the victim of a "witch hunt". the energy secretary, grant shapps, says the country wants to "move on" from the political drama surrounding borisjohnson. the former prime minister resigned as an mp, after getting an advance copy of a cross—party report that's expected to find that he misled parliament. meanwhile, the former conservative cabinet minister, sirjacob rees—mogg, has warned the party's leadership not to try to block any future attempt byjohnson to return to parliament. earlier, my colleague helena humphrey spoke to the bbc's political editor, chris mason, to help make sense of a tumultuous weekend in british politics. chris, thank you so much for being with us. sturgeon. now of course, two very different cases betweenjohnson and nicola sturgeon. but what do you think ties them together? the key thing here that ties together, as you rightly say, they are very different, the particular circumstances around nicola sturgeon,

the former first minister of scotland, and borisjohnson, the former uk prime minister, are very, very different but what unites them is the difficulty that what happened to each of them, what difficulty that prompts for the current leaders. of course, the processes in which they find themselves matter to themselves but crucially it is the difficulties it poses for rishi sunak as a prime minister, and for humza yousaf, the first minister of scotland. because to make the obvious point but it is worth making, it is mighty difficult at the best of times to be a leader, a first minister or a prime minister, it is even more so if the headlines and attention that your predecessors are as significant as they are around nicola sturgeon and borisjohnson. because question about them follow around the leaders right now, and it makes the capacity to find the space and the time and attention to talk

about what they would rather be talking about, so much harder. as you rightly point out, this makes the situation difficult for rishi sunak and humza yousaf. where do you think they go from here, then? where do you think they go from here, then? where does this leave them? so they've each got to try and find the space and time to define their own leaderships in their own way and be seen to be their own men, if you like, detached from their predecessors. but that is hard, given the attention that nicola sturgeon and boris johnson are generating. from the perspective of scotland's first minister, he takes over from a former first minister nicola sturgeon who was there for a long period of time and was very dominant and prominent during the covid

enquiry in particular, so it was always going to be difficult for him to come out a distinctive position and find a voice as a first minister but he does so in the swell of all of this that is going on at the moment in scottish politics. as far as rishi sunak is concerned, it is again, the situation around borisjohnson is an attention grabber that he can do without. he has defined his premiership so far, the last seven or so months ago since taking over in october, has been distinct and different from that of his predecessors, by being seen as being stable and, if you like, quiet, compared to his predecessors, and making a virtue out relative quietness, even predictability, dependability, compared to all the noise that accompanied the brief tenure of liz truss and pretty much the entire tenure of borisjohnson.

and being able to do that and being a virtue of being calm is harder with all of the swell of these headlines around borisjohnson and they will continue over the next couple of days because of the privileges committee of the house of commons which has been examining borisjohnson�*s conduct and what he said in the comments about what was happening in downing street during covid, that committee is going to meet on monday morning, and we expect early this coming week for that report that has looked into borisjohnson�*s conduct, his integrity, to be published, and that will be poured over as something of a verdict on mrjohnson�*s character and conduct. all of that will take away attention from the whole business of government as far as rishi sunak is concerned and then there are those by—elections, those contests to replace three conservative mps who are walking out as a result of what has happened. borisjohnson, nadine dorries, and nigel adams as well. from the prime minister �*s perspective what he rather have these by—elections or not?

of course, he would rather not have them, so the headache lasts a long time. chris mason, great to talk to you. thanks a lot. cheers. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. bbc news, bringing you different stories from across the uk. it was a perfect day for solar panels in fields near warminster. thousands have been installed, right beside two existing solar farms. in total, 140 acres are now generating electricity. opening the latest additions, kingswood mp, and former climate change minister, chris skidmore. i declare the solar farm officially opened. he was commissioned by the government to advise on how best britain could cut its emissions. year on year on year, the energy that they produce is incredibly cheap, if not to the point of nearly being free. and actually that money comes

back with an additional investment. on a day like this, these panels are generating a huge amount of electricity. in fact, they reckon, when the sun shines, as much as a quarter of the uk's electricity can come from solar. but in order to achieve net zero, the country's going to need a lot more of these, and a lot more other forms of zero—carbon power generation. you're live with bbc news. the uk's head of counter terrorism policing says he's concerned about the growth of the british conspiracy theory movement. mattjukes has told the bbc that his team is, quote, "seeing evidence of conspiracy "theories, being interwoven with extremism". our disinformation and social media correspondent, marianna spring has more. those comments about the conspiracy movement more generally, as i have been investigating the conspiracy media that's a part of. this is the late paper, set up during the late paper, set up during the pandemic, it still ordered

in and handed out by volunteers and dozens of places across the country. evidence suggests it prints around 100,000 copies a month, and the light also has a telegram channel with over 18,000 members. the paper's editor says he isn't in charge of them, but acknowledges they are directly linked to the paper. on there, and in the paper. on there, and in the paper itself, the paper has shared this information as well as hateful and violent rhetoric towards journalists, as hateful and violent rhetoric towardsjournalists, medics and towards journalists, medics and mp5. towardsjournalists, medics and mp5. on telegram, it has also mps. on telegram, it has also shared content link to far right content in the uk, including patriotically alternative and alpha men assemble, which offers military style training to anti—vaccine activists. the light is connected with a conspiracy paper in germany core democratic resistance, which refers to the light as a partner publication. the late as he speaks to its editor to three times a year. whistle—blowers have revealed how that german paper is connected to the race berger group, who are behind a coup attempt in germany last december. is more.

totnes in devon was one of the places where the conspiracy theory movement boomed during the pandemic. now, a motivated minority continue to protest and distribute the light paper. access to your money will be owned by and controlled by the state. former town mayor ben piper says he's become a key target for the movement. he fears an article about him in the light paper exacerbated the harassment he experienced. i've had people drive their car at me, i've been shouted at in the street, i have had people confront me in the supermarket, shoving their phones in my face. sinister telephone calls from strangers who don't identify themselves, you know, of an evening, and stuff like that. as well as more mundane articles, there are others promoting disinformation about vaccines, the financial system and climate change. one recent article talks about the use of force against "aggressors, like the government". in print and on its telegram channels, there are calls

for war—crimes style trials for mp5, medics and journalists they see as complicit in plots to harm people with the vaccine. i went to meet the editor of the light, darren nesbitt. the build—up to this interview has been pretty hostile, and darren has insisted that he will ask me questions, as well as me asking him questions. we believe in the right of people to hold ideas, hold thoughts, ideas and express their views. you know, if you take one iota from that away, we're now down the road of censorship, of thought control. do you think that calls for action in the paper for people to take action to do something could result in action that is not peaceful? of course! people make their own decisions and they need to be responsible for their own actions. people should not be passive and just let the world change around them, because there is an agenda and a purpose behind it, and it's not for their own best interests. the light is also related

to a german paper, called democratic resistance. whistle—blowers have revealed to me how some of the german paper's writers, and one of its key donors, met with members of the reichsburger group, who were behind a failed coup attempt in germany in december 2022. markus heinz stopped writing for the paper because he felt it had become too extreme. you cannot say, "ok, on twitter i'm nice, "and on telegram i say "kill them all." for me, the biggest problem is that the people who write in this newspaper do not say anything about it. i don't understand it. the editor of democratic resistance, anselm lenz, did not reply to points raised by the bbc. he said, "if needed, we are willing to take the fight by all means." closer to home, the inclination towards hateful rhetoric brings with it a risk of action offline. marianna spring, bbc news. marianna spring, bbc news.

the father of four children rescued alive after more than a month in the colombianjungle is hailing his oldest daughter as a hero. he said his oldest child lesly, who is just 13, helped save her siblings' lives after their plane crashed in the amazon jungle. she reportedly made camp for her siblings, and provided any food she could find. the youngest of whom is just 11 months old. the widower also says their mother actually survived for four days after the crash and mentioned his wife's last words were, "you guys get out of here". it's a miracle of god. as a belief of the indigenous people, we believe it is a test of god to see how much faith we have in him. i have demonstrated it with my own words. as i sat in the beginning, we, as indigenous people, are able to search for them. we show the world that we found the plane, and we show the world that we found the children. the first thing i did was talk to the 13—year—old girl. it is not easy to ask them, because the children did

not eat well for a0 days, so i have not been able to get any information from them. we hope that the children will recover well. well, novak djokovic has made tennis history with his win at the french open. the serbian is now the first men's player to reach 23 grand slam titles, surpassing a record held by rafael nadal. djokovic beat norway's casper ruud in straight sets in the final at roland garros on sunday. only margaret court and serena williams, on the women's side, have managed that many grand slams. much more news at the top of the hour. much more news at the top of the hour. stay with us here on bbc news. hello. sunday was another very warm or even hot day with temperatures peaking at around 32 celsius. that heat and humidity giving

rise to some dramatic skies, as some thunderstorms kicked off through the afternoon and into the evening. if we take a look back at the radar picture, we can see that we had some storms in northern scotland, some across northern england, and then this clump of thunderstorms, this quite big, organised area of storms, that drifted westwards, across the midlands, towards wales. so, as we head through monday, really it's more of the same, more spells of sunshine, but still the chance for some thunderstorms, with that heat and humidity. temperatures to start the day between ten and 17 degrees, so a very warm start to the day, quite a muggy start. for most, a dry start, but a little bit of rain to clear away from parts of wales, maybe some extra cloud in the far south west and a few showers even from the word go, and into the afternoon, as the sun heats the land, while those big shower clouds will bubble up once again, particularly across parts of southern england into the midlands and wales.

some of these thunderstorms could be really quite vicious, with a lot of rain in a short space of time, gusty winds and some hail. western counties of northern ireland, southwest scotland, and perhaps more especially the north of scotland, also prone to some of these downpours and thunderstorms. but as ever, with these weather set—ups, there will be places that fall through the gaps and stay completely dry. another very, very warm day, temperatures widely the mid to high 20s, somewhere could again get to 30 degrees. we will continue to see some big showers and thunderstorms in places during monday evening. many of them fading, though, overnight into tuesday. we'll see some areas of low cloud around some of these western coast. of these western coasts. it is another pretty warm night in prospect, and then, for tuesday, well, the greatest chance for showers will be found across the western side of the uk. further east, not as many showers, more dry weather, plenty of sunshine. still feeling very warm, indeed. highest temperatures, at this stage, likely to be down towards the south, up to around 29, possibly 30 degrees, for parts of central southern england. as we look deeper into the week, high pressure remains firmly in charge. but as we pick up more of an easterly breeze,

well, temperatures will drop backjust a little. still, though, feeling very warm indeed. mostly dry, with some sunshine.

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