voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. in the last several hours, russia has invaded ukraine. translation: i have decided to conduct a special military operation. this is barbaric. a whole line of traffic for as far as the eye can see, trying to get out. putin is the aggressor. putin chose this war. putin's squalid venture should ultimately fail and be seen to fail.

glory to ukraine. slava. others: slava! this week marks 1,000 days — 1,000 days — since russia began its full—scale invasion of ukraine and, along with my colleagues james waterhouse and vitaly shevchenko, we have recorded a special episode to mark that. we have been following the lives of various ukrainians for the last two years, and here we catch up with some of them and reflect on the last 1,000 days and how the conflict has changed them, and what the future might hold for them. i'm going to introduce you straight away to one of our listeners, tom. hi, tom. hi, victoria, how you doing? i'm very well, thank you. thank you so much for being with us. and i know you have a question

for iryna, for 0lga and for vitalii. go ahead. i do. privyet. on that first day of the invasion, where were you, what were you doing at the time, and how did you hear that war had broken out? what was going through your mind in those first few hours of the invasion? it was near seven o'clock in the morning, and i woke up to a phone call from my close friend and she said, "uh, ira, uh, just keep calm, uh, "close all the windows, "uh, ira, uh, just keep calm, uh, close all the windows, "uh, fill in the bathtub." we... we just... we just anticipated that, that electricity cuts and water supply cuts would occur and turn suspilne on. "it's. .. "it's happening. "it's happening now. " suspilne�*s a tv channel. yes, it's our national—wide tv channel. and, uh, at the same time as i hear this phrase from her,

uh, "it's happening," i hear the explosions behind my window and it's like, "wow, it's really happening." uh, in the next few hours, i learned that my younger brotherjoined the military. it was... it was also a bit of shock. uh, i learned also that, uh, the majority of my friends, of my close friends, of my circle, are fleeing kyiv because, uh, everybody, everybody is preparing for the worst, uh, for russian troops to be in kyiv in, like, three days. and, uh, and where is my husband — who is my husband for two days? we were married on 22nd of february and so, we are just sitting and... what should we do now? what should we do? everybody is fleeing. vitalii. it was shocking. i remember i stayed up late i playing some computer games

and just before half past four, ithink, i heard planes - overflying my house. and it was a very strange, uh, you know, thing to hear- in the middle of the night, - because you wouldn't normally, uh, hear any military aircraft taking off at such a time. . uh, and so i went to bed - and i think at half past seven, my mother, she, uh, came| into my room and she said, "vitalii, wake up. "the war began. " and she pointed at the directionl of the military airfield, and i saw plumes . of smoke still rising and i understood that- indeed, the unimaginable, the unthinkable had happened. i remember people were crying in supermarkets. i they were trying to i embrace one another.

and we were... we were scared. 0lga? i was woken up at 5am by my nephew. he called me at five and said, "0lga, wake up. the war has started." she said, "go and, uh, make, uh, some water supplies." then ijumped off my bed and started pouring water. my kids woke up and didn't know what had happened, and i was rushing around, pouring water with...in panic. the same day, i heard the helicopters flying. it was a horrible day which i will never forget. and i have never thought that this horror will last for 1,000 days. tom, what do you want to say to vitalii and iryna and 0lga?

thank you so much for sharing your stories. um, i think in britain it's really hard for us to understand what on earth you have gone through. we know nothing like it. um, and i was speaking to my partner even earlier, and i said, "people still live there, you know." and she said, "why don't they leave?" but this is their homes. this is... this is your home. they shouldn't have to. um, but it's really good to hear the human side, not just tactics and strategy and statistics — what you actually felt. um, so that's a real insight that we don't often get. so thank you very much for that. tom, thank you so much. after the initial shock of the full—scale invasion, war in ukraine became the norm. and, vitalii, we first spoke to you just weeks into the conflict. there was a huge fireball.. booming explosion ..and it was followed - by a rather strange sight. it was like a confetti

made out of silver l and was climbing up and up. then there was this mushroom, and the sky itself was turned l into dark because the military, and when i saw the fireball, the heart literally stopped. i i almost cried. and it was just to that point when you literally felt like i you're losing - your consciousness. you cannot believe i that what is going on, what is happening. in front of your eyes, is happening in reality. vitalii, you are listening back to yourself and you are, i can see that you are really emotional about this. tell us why it's making you feel like this, hearing you two years ago. i mean, lam recalling as we speak— the moment i saw that i missile striking the depot at that military airfield and, uh, you know, | uh, two years later, it still feels all so real

and yet so surrealj at the same time. mm. uh, it brings emotions, l very powerful emotions. and, you know, ever since then, i saw so many missile attacks i right in front of my very own eyes, _ and, uh, youjust get used to it. i vitalii, how have you been all this time? how has your life changed? uh, it's been, uh, - you know, a roller—coaster, uh, in itself. uh, in the words. of a famous writer, "it was the best of times, | it was the worst of times," uh, because, i've been able to graduate - from my institute with a degree in international law. i'm currently pursuing my master-s in — international communications. i've been able to, you know, fall in love - for the first time. you know, it also brought some very interesting life experiences. - um, i've had, um, unfortunately, -

a very big falling out with my parents, - who unfortunately disowned me. so, it had... i had to go through this, you know, uh, accelerated maturing of sorts. - uh, but it makes a person stronger and not weaker. i and i think i draw an inspiration- and a certain strength from it all. _ i'm really sorry to hear about family relations. i didn't know, vitalii, that you'd fallen in love for the first time. you haven't told us that before. oh, yes. i did have a boyfriend. we met, um, - in decemberlast year. unfortunately, _ our relationships were not, um, you know, um, - they weren't, uh, a success. but i still treasure - the memories of this, uh, wonderful romance, and i'm hopeful that it| will come to me again. i'm sure it will. 0lga, let's, uh,

let's talk about you. the russians came to your city, to kherson. what was it like? it was like the nightmare which never left me... ..before the liberation day. to see them walking along my town, native town, which i really love... ah, we tried to protest. by the way, i was one of those who rushed to pull... their war machine from the square, and i kicked one of them with my toe. so, we tried to protest. you were the resistance. and then, we... you were the resistance, 0lga. you were. i did everything what i could, and first and foremost, i wanted my kids to leave the city because i was scared that the russians would come and take, start taking men

into their army. yeah. were you not afraid to protest? that was dangerous. when you are afraid, you will lose. i didn't want to lose. and i protested with as much as i could. ifihad... if i were younger, i would maybe go somewhere to fight. it's a pity i am just a pensioner. let's bring in ukrainecast listener beth ann krueger, who is in arizona. and you have a question specifically for 0lga, don't you, beth ann? yes, ma'am, ido. 0lga, what keeps you - dedicated to your students? knowing the future might be very difficult for them. - well, you know, i've been working for 42 years already, and i love teaching. and i love kids, and i love my subject. that's why i will be

working as long as i can. and you know, now i am teaching a country study of the united states and the uk. and when they are shelling here, sitting in kherson and they are shelling and you can hear blasts everywhere, and you are speaking and telling them about washington, new york, beauty of america, or beauty of london. you see, it sometimes sounds weird, but it's life. we are celebrating life at our lessons. i want them to know. i want them to be educated people. i want them to be more intelligent than those russians who came here. 0lga, you're... you're so brave. i used to be a teacher. i appreciate everything youte doing _ for the ukrainian children. thank you. slava ukraini. thank you so much, beth ann. heroiam slava! thank you. thank you for being with us. despite the challenges,

the adversity, the trauma, the grieving, people are trying to get on with their lives. iryna, ijust want to play you this. singing in ukrainian and that is you singing a lullaby to your baby mira, who you gave birth to this year. your husband volodymyr and you welcomed mira into the world. how is she doing, first of all? 0h, she's... she is our miracle. she's trying to walk by herself. she is very smiling, very friendly. she is very talkative now. mm. and she... and she brings so muchjoy and so much fun every day. and it is difficult.

it is difficult to be a young mum, even... even without the circumstances, without war, without air—raid alerts every day. well, on... can ijust play you this? iryna giggles iryna? it's from joanna. yes. yes, of course. who is a ukrainecast listener in west yorkshire, here in the uk. hello, iryna. it's a long time since i've had children, but i do remember how vulnerable you feel, both when you're pregnant and when you have a small baby to look after. and i'm wondering, i can't really imagine how that must be in a war zone with all the insecurity and all the noises and so forth and so on. so, can you tell us a bit about how you've managed to cope through your pregnancy and caring for your new one? we're all adapting. we're all trying to move on with our lives as... as we should. because we, you know,

we're one life. we're one life to live. and there are some circumstances and... but life goes on and we should live. and i want to raise her as a brave person, as a joyful person, as a person who loves life as much as i love my life. and so i decided to have a child here in kyiv and stay here and raise her here for as long as it takes. and of course, i was worried. i was worried about my pregnancy, but at the same time... is that... i'm so sorry to interrupt, iryna. yes. is that... is that mira in the background? can we hear her? i'm sure ijust... yes! yes. is she there? yes, yes. can we... she's here. we can we say hello? yes, of course. mira. victoria chuckles mira, please say hello! to the listeners of the ukrainecast. ha—ha! hi, mira! here is she!

oh, my gosh. look at that smile! aw. she's so playful and so friendly and so artistic. yeah. and she... she loves being a part of everything. aw. iryna, you never thought about leaving 1,000 days ago. and you've talked about the relentless drone strikes that you and kyiv has to endure. i understand your reasons for staying, but is life safe for mira at this moment in time? because it was hard for you when you were pregnant. now she has arrived, and things are as tough as they are. is life truly safe? it is not. life is nowhere safe in ukraine. nowhere in ukraine. yesterday, we had one of the most massive missile and shell attack of all of the full—scale invasion. and we experienced missile flying in uzhhorod

and chernivtsi, which are considered the safest cities in ukraine. yeah, western part of ukraine. there is no safe places in ukraine. and we are considering... we are considering moving, for example, to my parents' house, which is in zhytomyr 0blast. she hesitates just... just to have, for example, heating. because when we experienced this summer, for example, when we experienced long—time electricity cuts, i'm speaking to you now, and we have no electricity in our home, at our home, because from today, we are returning to our regular electricity cuts. and this is the second one which started 15 minutes ago. and i'm speaking to you now. it's so difficult. so, yes. yes, it's quite difficult. and this summer it was extremely difficult

because, seven—plus hours without electricity. 38 degrees in our apartment. and mira could not sleep. and sometimes without water supply. it was tough. it was really tough. but now, now winter comes and it brings even more challenges, even more difficulties. our first priority is to stay in kyiv as long as possible. but when it's... when it's no longer possible, we should prepare for all the possible scenarios. 0k. let's introduce ian, who is one of our listeners. tell us, ian, why you continue to listen to ukrainecast, if that's ok. my father was a child in world war ii, - and all his stories about sheltering| in bomb shelters very much seemed like tales of the past, - like history that - can never happen again.

so it was quite a shock i that war has broken out. so i see it as part of my duty to listen_ and to not let - the story get lost. yeah. and you have a question which we're going to put to 0lga, then vitalii, and then iryna. go ahead, ian. yes. so for all the ukrainians on the panel, _ what, if any, land would you be willing to give up - as part of a peace deal with putin? _ i think that we cannot leave any our land to russia because it's not only land, there are people there. people, millions of people are living there and being in an occupation, i understand how it is being occupied under russia. they suppress, they torture. they kill. people just disappear. can you imagine what will happen to people

on the occupied areas? that's why the end of the war means all our territories free and all our territories ukrainian. vitalii? i thank you for your question. it's a very delicate, very sensitive question to all of us ukrainians, of course. but i do think we have to be realists. we have to evaluate what our position or where our troops stand as the peace negotiations open. they will open, inevitably. that is for sure. but i am not prepared to say at this moment which of the territories we should be prepared to concede and what territories we should not be prepared to concede. i was and still remain a proponent of an armistice and not a, you know, sustained sort of, you know,

let's say, settlement that will, you know, just make the situation set in stone in terms of the occupation. but i do think that we have to be pragmatic and we have to be realistic about our military potential and about our capabilities. go ahead, iryna. the only thing i want to remind all of you about is the resistance movement on the occupied territories called zhovta strichka — yellow ribbon. there are people in the occupied, even for ten years, in the occupied crimea and donetsk and luhansk, which are ukrainians, which are resisting and which are hoping that one day, those territories will be liberated. this... this conversation about territories

is not about territories at all. it's about people, first of all. we cannot... we can absolutely not let these people down because they are ukrainians. ian, what would you like to say, finally, to 0lga, vitalii and iryna? thank you, everyone. those were very moving words that you had. - and i wish you all good i health, and slava ukraini. heroiam slava. thank you very much. heroiam slava. thank you, ian. thank you. when you look at what is happening around ukraine politically and what is going on on the battlefield, do any of you feel like, for the first time, a form of end might be closing in on this full—scale invasion? regardless of how you would like it to end. the tide is turning. it's turning not in our. favour at the moment. and if they continue to progress- at their present track, at their present pace, | i am very much afraid we'll be

dealing with russian soldiersl standing on the front line, on the frontier between, | let's say, dnipropetrovsk and donetsk regions. and that is far more worse. thank you so much for becoming our friends. and hopefully one day, we'll actually get to meet you in person. i'mjust in awe. mm. you are real heroes. nothing more i can say. we are just ukrainians. 0ur armed forces are heroes, are real heroes. 0ur air defence are heroes. they are constantly saving our lives as civilians living in ukraine. and we are just regular ukrainian civilians, yes. there's so many things that you've said that will stay with me, but, iryna, it's you saying today, "we've got one life to live." and that's true of absolutely all of us, wherever we are. particularly for you guys

coping with this, and we just want to say thank you so much for talking to our listeners around the world. and thank you to mira, as well. ukrainecast from bbc news. hello there. well, storm bert has given us some very severe weather conditions right across the uk through the day on saturday — heavy snow, rain, strong gusty winds. potentially more disruption to come, too — it's not over yet. here are some of the strongest wind gusts through the day on saturday. higher wind gusts recorded across some mountainous regions, and it could be windier still for parts of the channel coast on sunday than it was on saturday. there's been a lot of rain around as well, a number of flood warnings in force.

that number could well rise for the rest of the night and through the day on sunday. there's more rain to come, certainly more strong, gusty winds. here's the centre of the low moving very slowly northwards and eastwards, tight squeeze on the isobars. more snow melt across scotland tonight, and that could add to the flooding problems perhaps here with the rising temperatures into tomorrow morning, that milder—feeling air. still gales, particularly for exposed coasts, and a lot of heavy rain piling into south west england and wales. but look at the temperatures as we start off the day on sunday and compare that to how cold it was earlier on through the week, so a very mild start to the day. there's more rain across south west england, in through wales and stretching up to yorkshire, humberside perhaps, moving southwards and eastwards through the day. some hazy sunshine, drier weather to the north of that, and more showers packing into western scotland and northern ireland. but very windy for western scotland, down through the northern isles and for northern ireland as well. gusts of wind here of up to 75 miles an hour. up to 65 for some of these channel coasts, too.

but a very mild day — we could get to 17 celsius, perhaps, given any brightness in the far southeast of england — that rain clearing away from here as we head into monday morning. still very windy towards the north. there'll be heavy, persistent outbreaks of rain still here. it is a cooler day across the board but certainly drier further south. still a few more showers out towards the west, perhaps. as we head through monday and into tuesday, the storm is moving off towards scandinavia, so we are going to see lighter winds across the board. in fact, the winds are coming in from the north, so it is going to be feeling cooler. watch out on wednesday — there could be more rain in the south from another area of low pressure, pushing further northwards and eastwards, so generally cooler into the start of next week. there will be more sunshine around and lighter winds. watch out for some rain in the south through the middle of the week. bye— bye.

live from washington, this is bbc news. an 11th hour deal at the cop29 climate summit after negotiations on financing

for poorer nations went into overtime. whilst some celebrate, other nations, including india, say the deal falls far short of what is needed. and state media injordan says a man has been shot dead and two police officers injured in an exchange of fire near the israeli embassy in amman. i'm helena humphrey. good to have you with us. us presidentjoe biden hailed a major climate finance deal as a "significant step" after days of negotiations, twists and turns at the cop29 conference in baku. 200 countries secured the last—minute agreement, which offers $300 billion per year to poorer nations for efforts to fight climate change. the talks were on the verge of collapse just hours earlier, when the group representing poorer nations walked out. they eventually returned to the negotiating table but were angered by an offer from wealthier nations that was far short of the $500 billion they wanted.