this is bbc news. our main headlines here: a man is charged in the uk with the murders of three people on the streets of nottingham on tuesday. a wave of missiles hit the ukrainian capital kyiv as a group of african leaders begin a peace mission. we will also have a special bbc investigation on the number of russian deaths. hundreds of people are still missing after a migrant boat sank off the coast of greece. officials have denied reports that a rope attached by coastguards caused it to capsize. and a new dinosaur species has been found on the isle of wight.

we'll hear from an expert about the remarkable discovery. first, though, a bbc investigation suggests at least 25,000 russian soldiers have been killed in ukraine, four times higher than the figure acknowledged by moscow. the research also suggests many of the casualties are now older fighters, with little or no training. significant numbers have been recruited from prisons. 0ur correspondent 0lga ivshina has this special report. these are the war graves russia doesn't want to talk about. since december, the bbc has located seven new cemeteries dotted across russia and occupied ukraine. they're filled with the graves of poorly trained fighters. many were prisoners recruited by the notorious wagner mercenary group. and the cemeteries are growing rapidly. this one is about 20 times bigger than it was six months ago.

since the start of the war, we have been verifying photos of graves and social media posts with the independent russian website mediazona and volunteers inside the country. so far, we have identified 25,000 names. this is four times more than russia has acknowledged. it's illegal to report anything but the official death toll inside russia. so we have come to kyrgyzstan to speak to the families of fighters who have died. hundreds of people from countries like this that were once part of the soviet union have signed up tojoin putin's forces. filming tiktoks on the way to war, this 21—year—old paratrooper is typical of those who died at the start of the conflict — a young, highly—trained professional soldier in the russian army. translation: he always wanted to be the first. i i think that's why he decided tojoin the military, and there he was also given the choice, apparently. he chose to be there. go to war, you mean? yes, yes.

as a professional soldier, he was buried with full military honours after he was killed in action in may 2022. but six months later, in a nearby village, there was no military funeral for another fighter, even though he also died on the front line. that's because he wasn't a professional soldier, but a prisoner serving a seven—year sentence for assault. he had signed up to fight for the mercenary group wagner, hoping to win his freedom in return for a six—month contract. translation: a man called| and told me that my son died fighting in ukraine. i was shocked. i asked, "how come my son is even at the war?" did my son die for nothing? am i going to cry until the end of my life? the deaths of these men show how russia's war has changed. in the first three months of the conflict, it lost large numbers of professional soldiers. but in the past three months, it's non—professional fighters

who have recentlyjoined the russian forces that are dying in greater numbers. the shift in demographics in russian losses reflects not only the fact that the russians lost a large number of their professional troops early in the war, but also the fact that they've shifted their tactics. they now see their professional soldiers as a resource that is to be held in reserve and only used when the conditions are right. now they are letting the brunt of that reconnaissance offensive activity be led by mobilised troops that they treat in quite a disposable way. 0nly publicly reported deaths are captured by our count. estimates from britain's ministry of defence suggest the true figure is likely to be at least twice as high. the bbc contacted the russian government for comment, but it has not responded. and every day the messages and photos of graves keep coming. that was 0lga ivshina0lga

with —— that was 0lga ivshina with that special report. president putin has been speaking at an economic forum in st petersburg. he also warned ukraine against the use of f—16fighterjets outside its borders. mr putin discussed how russia would respond if planes were used outside of ukraine's borders. translation: leopard tanks are burning. - f—16s will burn in the same way, i have no doubt. applause but if they're used outside of ukraine's borders, to be used in combat, we will have to look at how and where we are going to target the weapons that are going to be used against us in the battlefield. there is a very serious threat that nato is going to be involved in this military conflict.

a day after a report found borisjohnson had misled parliament, the former prime minister has been accused of committing a "clear breach" of the ministerial code by taking a job as a columnist for the daily mail. the appointments watchdog claims mrjohnson told them about his newjob half an hour before the announcement — and before the committee could provide advice. on monday, mps will vote on whether to approve the report which concluded that he lied to parliament. mrjohnson has reportedly asked supporters not to vote against its findings. the political correspondent of the spectator, james heale, has been speaking to some of the former prime minister's supporters. what i'm hearing, from talking to them, is that it sounds like borisjohnson has effectively been saying to his supporters remaining in parliament to not go out on a limb and die in a ditch for him on monday. there was some suggestions when the report came out yesterday, there were lots of conservative mp

who were criticising it — about 15 or 20 or so at the last count — but only a handful of those were saying they were actually going to vote against the recommendations on monday. and that's because i think 18 months ago, we had the owen paterson scandal, and the conservatives mp know what happened with that, trying to vote down the recommendations of the standards commissioner. it led to obviously a whole host of events that ultimately helped bring down boris johnson. so not going to be repeating that. so likelihood actually you'll get a kind of few minority of conservatives will vote against the report, but it should now pass easily. what's your reading of that? because does it demonstrate perhaps a shrinking number of people that out and out want to put their head above the parapet and say, "tes, out and out want to put their head above the parapet and say, "yes, i support borisjohnson," after the extraordinary detail we learned yesterday? yes, there's certainly that. i mean, i think borisjohnson�*s support within parliament has been diminishing for a while. in october, of course, he tried to make a comeback

in the conservative leadership. he struggled to get 100 endorsements to get on the ballot. then in march, we saw the vote on the stormont break... 21 other conservative mp followed him into the lobbies to vote against it. and so now what we're seeing is, i think, a recognition perhaps of borisjohnson�*s position within parliament not having the strength of support he once had. but i also think there's a recognition from a lot of conservative mps that stories around sort of standards and sleaze, which labour obviously would hope to exploit, are not what they want to keep perpetuating. and therefore it's probably let the thing pass and then pick their battles another day. this was a prime minister at the time guilty of misleading parliament, the importance of the way permanent works, what does your analysis in terms of rishi sunak, because will he, will he not vote, come monday, what are you hearing about that? because does then this boil down to leadership, to matters of principle that, in a sense, the critics will say an opposition will say, he needs to be there in the chamber became quite clear where his vote is? , , ,, ., ~ vote is? yes, rishi sunak came in,

one of his — vote is? yes, rishi sunak came in, one of his first _ vote is? yes, rishi sunak came in, one of his first actions _ vote is? yes, rishi sunak came in, one of his first actions was - vote is? yes, rishi sunak came in, one of his first actions was to - one of his first actions was to stand outside down the street and promise integrity and accountability at the highest level. he wants to put clearly water between him and borisjohnson. so much of his time in office has been guided by that principle, not being borisjohnson. he has two options. he can either abstain or vote against it. the number ten operation have been careful to pick their battles. with conservative mps now really not suggesting there could be voting against in huge numbers, there could be more chance of him voting for it, but it is not yet decided. however, we have heard reports that there will be the arrival of european prime minister on monday, and therefore he will be indisposed when it comes to that vote, which some say might be a good thing for him. the latest details of that daily mail job and the latest details of that daily mailjob and that announcement, what does it say about the british media that the man, such a short in that report, yesterday, gets higher the next day as a leading writer —— such extraordinary detail. next day as a leading writer -- such extraordinary detail.— extraordinary detail. shows no matter how — extraordinary detail. shows no matter how many _

extraordinary detail. shows no matter how many the - extraordinary detail. shows no| matter how many the breaches extraordinary detail. shows no i matter how many the breaches of extraordinary detail. shows no - matter how many the breaches of the rules... he is believed to have breached the rules with this new job. there is still an audience for borisjohnson. he is still perceived to be somebody who has influence within the conservative party. he was a journalist for 20 years or so before coming and mp and then cabinet minister... he before coming and mp and then cabinet minister. . ._ before coming and mp and then cabinet minister... he cannot help himself, in — cabinet minister... he cannot help himself, in terms _ cabinet minister. .. he cannot help himself, in terms of— cabinet minister... he cannot help himself, in terms of breaching - cabinet minister... he cannot help i himself, in terms of breaching rules and norms, can he?— and norms, can he? quite. this is the ureat and norms, can he? quite. this is the great irony — and norms, can he? quite. this is the great irony of _ and norms, can he? quite. this is the great irony of boris _ and norms, can he? quite. this is the great irony of boris johnson. l the great irony of borisjohnson. how will he criticise the sunak government, as we assume he will, when he was trying minister for three years? —— prime minister. that three years? -- prime minister. that was james three years? -- prime minister. that was james heale _ three years? —— prime minister. that wasjames heale speaking to me. now, we hear a lot of negative stories about artificial intelligence, but here is one example of its benefits. a pilot project in devon is using al to predict water pollution, including sewage spills. a network of sensors placed in water provides information that, when combined with data about previous spills, should result in early warnings.

our environment correspondent jonah fisher went to north devon to find out more. it looks nice from a distance, but for years, the water at the beach at combe martin has been problematic. if people are bathing in bad water quality, then obviously you're going to pick up bacteria. stomach problems, eye infections, all those sort of things. twice in the last five years, contamination from sewage, dog faeces and agriculture meant the environment agency advising people not to swim. there is very much a community fear about what would happen if the bathing water quality was actually rescinded, you know. and it's about the tourism industry, but also they care about the natural environment as well. combe martin's problems have attracted an innovative project, using cutting—edge technology to try to clean things up. the river umber is seen as the main route for pollution to get to the beach. this water sensor is one

of a network of sensors that have been deployed in the catchment area. they include soil sensors and rain gauges, as well. the idea is that all that information is brought together to try to more accurately predict when and where pollution events and sewage spills are likely to take place. the floating sensors are solar powered and connected both to a mobile and long—range wi—fi network. every hour, they send in data on six key indicators. a snapshot of the health of the water. what would you expect to see here, then, if, for example, sewage was being discharged upstream? yeah, so we would see spikes in things like ammonia and ph, and we can also then cross—reference that with temperature and dissolved oxygen levels. so you'd have a pretty clear indication almost immediately that something was going wrong? yeah, exactly that. the ai model has been trained

to recognise the signs that a spill might be about to take place. it crunches all the real—time data, including satellite images, and can, if necessary, raise the alarm. the idea is to very much scale and roll this out to different parts of the uk. we have already begun some of those conversations with different county councils that are interested. it is a lot easier to prevent it than actually try to sort of deal with it once the incident has occurred. all this tech isn't cheap. a water sensor alone costs about £2,000. but with billions set to be spent on upgrading the sewage network, this approach could have a role to play, warning us about pollution before it hits our rivers and beaches. jonah fisher, bbc news, in north devon. let's talk a little bit more to jonah, whojoins me now on the

programme. absolutely fascinating, that report, jonah. we hear so much doomsday talk about al, but there you get a clear glimpse of some of your positive uses we could have any future? ., ., ., ., ., future? yeah, there advantage of usin: future? yeah, there advantage of using artificial— future? yeah, there advantage of using artificial intelligence - future? yeah, there advantage of using artificial intelligence in - future? yeah, there advantage of using artificial intelligence in a i using artificial intelligence in a situation like this is that it can basically deal with a lot of data coming in a single time. all this real—time information from sensors, all the satellite imagery, it can then combine that with what it has already learned about previous skills in that area, so it has been back through the records of what has happened in the last 20 years or so, it has seen where in wynn�*s bills have taken place, what were the conditions, and then he can try to match that up with situations now and then raise the alarm that perhaps the situation in this field, perhaps the situation in this field, perhaps the situation in this field, perhaps the soil is too dry, the farmer has put too much fertiliser in the field, and with rain forecast, there should be a warning put out for example for that farm not to put any fertiliser on the field. so it does provide the

opportunity for all of that information to be brought together and then processed with the knowledge of what has happened in the past. knowledge of what has happened in the ast. . , knowledge of what has happened in the ast. ., , , the past. that is so interesting, the past. that is so interesting, the weighted — the past. that is so interesting, the weighted pieces _ the past. that is so interesting, the weighted pieces together i the past. that is so interesting, | the weighted pieces together all those different strands and fragments of information and data stub sewage spills have become such a massive story in the uk, and a horror story as well. in terms of this sort of technology, is the plane to roll it out across the country? plane to roll it out across the count ? . plane to roll it out across the country?— country? yeah, i think it is important that _ country? yeah, i think it is important that we - country? yeah, i think it is important that we do - country? yeah, i think it is - important that we do acknowledge that there are limitations. a warning would be put out by the ai technology. it would not always be the case there could be successful intervention. while it might be relatively easy to talk to a farmer and tell him to, for example, remove the slurry from a certain part of the slurry from a certain part of the field or not put fertiliser in place, it is not always the case, evenif place, it is not always the case, even if we know that heavy rain is going to cause a sewage treatment

plants to be overwhelmed, potentially it with an overflow raw sewage into a river, a lake or even into the sea, in those sort of situations, the water companies usually put their hands up and say, given the state of the infrastructure we are working with, there is simply nothing we can do. if we were to block the pipes and stop that mix of sewage and rainwater flowing stop that mix of sewage and rainwaterflowing into stop that mix of sewage and rainwater flowing into the stop that mix of sewage and rainwaterflowing into the rivers, it would back up into people's homes, so it will not always be the case where the ai warning couple about —— about what it is about, it will not always be possible for intervention take —— to take place. -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you _ -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you for— -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you forjoining _ -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you forjoining us - -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you forjoining us on - -- to take place. jonah fisher, thank you forjoining us on the | thank you forjoining us on the programme. indian weather forecasters have warned that a storm which hit the coast of north—west india and southern pakistan will continue to bring heavy rain as it heads inland. the cyclone brought down power lines and trees when it struck on thursday. it's now moving towards

the indian state of rajasthan but with lower wind speeds. our reporter arunday mukharji is in the coastal town of mandvi, in the indian state of gujarat. well, this is really how it has been all through the day. heavy rainfall from time to time. but in the morning, it started with very heavy rainfall and strong gusts of wind. but that has really weakened as the cyclone has weakened through the course of the day. we drove around the town of mandvi, which is very close to the shoreline, and we basically saw uprooted trees, uprooted electricity poles as well. there was waterlogging in several areas. we've also seen that there is no electricity in most parts of the city. those who have generators can power up their homes, but most of the others don't have any electricity. shops and businesses have also been shut. we also have been speaking to those who have continued to stay back in the shelters. the government has not told them that they can go back to their villages, because it has not given the all—clear yet.

and they have been trying to speak to people to understand what remains of their homes after the cyclone made landfall. many of these people are poor villagers living on the shoreline. they don't have concrete roofs. they have makeshift roofs. and there are reports coming in of some of these having blown away in the rain. officials, when we spoke to them, say that they are still in the process of assessing the extent of the damage, because a large part of the day, it was filled with heavy rainfall and strong gust of wind, so they couldn't go out to do surveys. they have only now gone out and they're trying to understand what is the extent of the cyclone's impact. and a real picture, perhaps, will only be properly visible by saturday. let's turn to japan. the parliament there has passed new legislation on rape and gay rights, after campaigns to overhaul laws seen as outdated and socially conservative. here's our tokyo correspondent, shaimaa khalil. i must say, it's quite remarkable and ground—breaking, because if you think about the age

of consent injapan, it had stayed at 13, it had stayed unchanged since it was enacted in 1907, and if my maths is right, that's over 100 years ago. and it's only now being raised to 16. before that, japan was among the lowest countries when it came to consent age, sexual consent age, so that in itself is quite remarkable. but also there are new laws that have been enacted redefining rape. what's quite interesting here is the language, the fact that it's become more specific. rape has now been redefined as "nonconsensual sexual intercourse" rather than "forcible sexual intercourse". and the new laws that have been enacted today by the upper house in parliament have set out eight specific scenarios where it would be difficult for a victim to express orfulfil an intention of not consenting to sex. so, in other words, any scenarios where the victim is unable to say they're not consenting.

so, for example, if the victim had been intoxicated, subjected to threats, violence, if they'd been frightened in a certain situation. and if that sounds basic, it is, but it has not been the case for years for thousands and thousands of sexual crimes here in japan. this is a huge change, because, before that, the previous laws did not protect those who were coerced into having sex. so it put the onus on the victims to come up with evidence that they were forced and, in many cases, they couldn't, and that resulted in so many cases not being reported. a recent survey actually showed that more than 70% of sex crimes, of sexual violence cases, just have not been reported because victims do not come forward because they know they're not going to be heard. shaimaa khalil. let's turn to a very popular story on the bbc website, spotify. it has ended its lucrative deal

with prince harry and his wife meghan to produce podcasts. our reporter nicky schiller is in the newsroom with more. so there will be no more harry and meghan on spotify. the deal was one of a number of commercial arrangements that the couple made when they quit the royalfamily and moved to the united states. the series itself was launched to a blaze of publicity in 2020. now, the contract was said to be worth $25 million. however, american media are reporting that the couple might not get the full value of the contract as they didn't hit what is known as a productivity benchmark. now, interestingly, we only had a very short statement from the two companies saying, "spotify and archewell audio have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud of the series that we made together". now, it does come after spotify last week announced job cuts in its podcast department. meghan's series was called archetypes. it ran for 12 episodes and featured a number of celebrities, including mariah carey and serena williams. here's how meghan described it last year. people should expect the real me in this and probably the me that they've never gotten to know, certainly not in the past few years, where everything is through the lens

of the media as opposed to, "hey, it's me". i'm just excited to be myself and talk and be unfiltered, and, yeah, it's fun. the series did win top podcast award at the people's choice awards in december, and meghan is said to be looking to develop content for a different platform. the royal couple have, of course, since splitting from the royalfamily, looked to capitalise on their fame. their netflix series, for example, is reportedly worth $100 million, whilst harry released his autobiography at the beginning of the year, spare — that part of a $20 million deal with penguin books. nicky schiller. the fossilised remains of a newly discovered species of dinosaur have been found on the isle of wight. it is the first new species of armoured dinosaur to be found on the island since 1865. it's been named in honour of professor paul barrett from the natural history museum, who says "any physical resemblance is purely accidental." earlier, i spoke to dr susannah maidment, who's the principal researcher at the natural history museum,

about theirfindings. well, actually, this specimen has been actually around since the 1980s, but it had been in a private collection. so we don't work on specimens when they're in private collections. and it was acquired by the dinosaur museum on the isle of wight in 2021, so we were able to work on it then. so we knew about the specimen for a while, but we didn't really know what it was until we got to look at it closely. and when you did get a look at it closely — i mean, even as you speak, there's a huge smile on your face — what was it like to get up close and see this thing? it is a really fantastic specimen. it has a really complete vertebral column. so lots of the vertebrae from the neck region and back are complete, its got a lovely hip region and it has amazing armour. so it's an ankylosaur, and these are armoured dinosaur which are covered in plates and spikes and armour shields. and, yeah, this has loads of those

preserved, so it is really, really fantastic to see this material, it's very nicely preserved, and it tells us there were more ankylosaurs on the isle of wight than we had previously realised. so we're going to have to go back and look at all the material we thought we knew and reappraise it, in light of this. that's really interesting, because i think i'm right in saying that this is a different type of species. so you had different types of species of dinosaur living effectively side by side on a pretty small island? yeah. and, actually, when we looked at the relationships, the two ankylosaurs that are known from the island aren't very closely related to each other at all. so this one is about 8 million years older than polacanthus, which is the ankylosaur that's known really well from the isle of wight. so to put that in context, we share a common ancestor with orangutans about 12 million years ago, so there's a lot of evolution that can occur in that time period, so we're not quite sure — because we don't have the fossils yet — that these two dinosaurs were actually overlapping in time. and it could be that vectipelta,

the new one, is actually significantly older than polacanthus and they weren't overlapping, but we do know that one didn't evolve into another. that was dr susannah maidment, who is the principal researcher there at the natural history museum, talking me through that amazing discovery. just before i go, i want to show you some lovely footage. it is a remarkably athletic otter, have a look at this, because it has learned to play basketball. juno is a nine—year—old rescue otter, living now at oregon zoo. as you can see, she has mastered the art of the slam dunk. staff at the zoo trained juno to play basketball several years ago, to exercise her elbowjoints and ease her arthritis. it certainly seems to have done that. she has her own, custom—made basketball hoop made of rock and, as you can see, is very much making the most of her training facilities.

otterly adorable is what my producer has written there. so he is fired and i will see you on monday! see you next time on verified live. hello. the weekend is here and there are some changes afoot on the weather front. those changes started to take place across the west during today, more cloud in the sky there. across parts of cornwall, we've seen some showers. and that's because we are closest in the west to this area of low pressure, this swirl of cloud here. and as this draws closer, the showers will become more widespread. so through tonight, south—west england, wales, parts of north—west england, south—west scotland and especially northern ireland will see some heavy, thundery downpours. the downpours across northern ireland could welljoin together into longer spells of rain. quite humid in the west — 15 for liverpool and for cardiff. cooler and, in fact, rather chilly for some eastern parts of england and eastern and northern parts of scotland. tomorrow, showers and thunderstorms, particularly in the west. one or two may get a little bit further east, and certainly

there will be more cloud in the mix and some low cloud and some very murky conditions developing across the northern isles, maybe getting into some northeastern coast of scotland. pollen levels tomorrow, high or very high for the majority, so continued issues for hay fever sufferers. and temperatures 20 to 2a or 25 degrees, so down just a touch on where they have been of late. now, we could see a shower at edgbaston through tomorrow. on the whole, it will be dry, but the increasing chance of some heavy downpours into sunday and monday for the ashes cricket. now, through saturday night, we'll see quite a lot of low cloud rolling onto eastern coasts of england and scotland and further showers in the west. and as we get into sunday, this area of low pressure wobbles a little closer to our shores. also, this frontal system pushing up from the south. so this is a combination that will bring more in the way of downpours and thunderstorms. don't take the position on the graphics too literally. they will be showers, they will be hit—and—miss. there'll be places in between that stay dry. but particularly across england and wales, we could see

intense thundery downpours, with the risk of localised flooding. temperatures certainly lower than they have been. 19 to 23 degrees covers it for most places. during sunday night, it could well be that the showers and storms join together into a more coherent area of heavy, thundery rain, which will then push its way northwards. low pressure still close by for the start of the new week, so there'll be further heavy showers around. an unsettled start to the week, perhaps turning drier in the south later on. temperatures remaining above the average for the time of year.

today at 6:00pm, a man is charged with three counts of murder and three of attempted murder in connection with the deaths of three people in nottingham. barnaby webber and grace o'malley—kumar, who were 19, and ian coates, who was 65, died on tuesday in the attacks. earlier today the police named the man they have been questioning as 31—year—old valdo calocane. he will appear before magistrates tomorrow morning. the appear before magistrates tomorrow morninu. , , , . appear before magistrates tomorrow morninu. , ,, . , appear before magistrates tomorrow mornin. , ,, . appear before magistrates tomorrow morninu. , ,_ ., morning. the suspect is also charged with three counts _ morning. the suspect is also charged with three counts of _ morning. the suspect is also charged with three counts of attempted - with three counts of attempted murder. also on the programme... the moment a survivor is reunited with his brother after the sinking of a migrant boat in the mediterranean. questions remain over greece's handling of the tragedy. a hosepipe ban is on the way for

parts of kent and sussex after record levels of demand