lam i am kasia madera. this is bbc news. as ukraine prepares to mark the third christmas since russia's invasion, we bring you a special report from the city of pokrovsk, the birthplace of a well—known carol. and it is notjust the physical destruction of the city that you can see all around me, ukraine also accuses russia of trying to erase its cultural identity. live pictures of bethlehem where muted christmas celebrations take place this year, as the war in the region rages on. nasa spacecraft hurtling towards the sun is poised to make history, with the closest approach ever to the star. hello. welcome. ukrainians are marking

their third christmas since the russian invasion, with putin's forces pushing deeper into the east of the country. the city of pokrovsk is russia's next target. its troops are now less than three kilometres from the city centre. it's a key military hub. but it's also part of ukraine's cultural identity too. it's the birthplace of a well—known christmas carol. our defence correspondent jonathan beale has this report. music: shchedryk the discord of christmas in a shattered city. but this is where the composer of this well—known carol once lived. pokrovsk — the next russian target. explosion most of its population's already fled. explosion no sound or sign of christmas here. just shelling. those left behind only break cover to find essentials. many are cut off from gas,

water and electricity. ihor says you never know where or when the next hit will be. he likens it to living on a powder keg. oksana hopes ukraine can hold on, but she thinks it's unlikely. pokrovsk, she says, will probably fall. russian forces are still advancing towards the city of pokrovsk. they are nowjust a few miles from where i'm standing. and it's notjust the physical destruction of the city that you can see all around me. ukraine also accuses russia of trying to erase its cultural identity, too. music: carol of the bells this familiar tune, known as the carol of the bells — or shchedryk in ukraine — was composed by mykola leontovych.

this is where he worked as a music teacher in pokrovsk — a plaque now the only reminder. the hasych family fled pokrovsk this summer. they're now shocked at the scale of devastation. mum yulia says it makes her want to cry. but she isn't letting her daughters forget home or the signature song of their city. translation: when i played it at home, it seemed happy. - it reminded me of winter and christmas. now it's more of a sad song to me, because it reminds me of home, and i really want to go back. but for one ukrainian military band, it's also become a song to inspire resistance.

they're even taking it to the trenches — with weapons as improvised instruments. translation: we'll visit any brigade on the front line - and perform ukrainian songs on any weapon. it lifts the spirits, those beats and rhythms cheer up the guys and inspire them to fight. shchedryk shows that ukraine is a civilised nation now at war, fighting for its identity. for ukraine, there is a special significance to this tune this christmas. russia may be able to destroy its towns and cities, but it can't erase ukraine's separate identity or its past. jonathan beale, bbc news, pokrovsk. our correspondent in ukraine will vernon says on the ground the war isn't currently going ukraine's way. things aren't going very well at all for ukraine.

russia is advancing in the east of the country. in the last few days, they've seized a number of villages. they're getting closer to that strategic city of pokrovsk, as you heard in jonathan's report there. and russia is advancing pretty fast. last month, they seized an area roughly the size of london. at a huge cost, it must be said, but nonetheless, they are advancing. as well as that, night after night, ukrainian cities are being barraged by missiles, drones, guided bombs. russia has been targeting ukraine's energy infrastructure. it is bitterly cold here, and most of the power grid is damaged or destroyed. yesterday, there were emergency blackouts in kyiv, in dnipro, other ukrainian regions too, so that the ukrainians could try and repair some of that damaged infrastructure. look, the mood here is gloomy, right? ukrainians feel abandoned by the west, frankly. a few days ago, we were in this

event in kyiv, a special christmas demonstration where people gathered to commemorate the plight of ukrainians who are held in captivity in russia. there are thousands still held there. 8,000, perhaps even more than that. and people were saying, "look, at this time of year when people are sitting down to their christmas dinner or gathering with their loved ones at new year, spare a thought for ukraine and for those thousands of ukrainians who are being kept, many in very brutal conditions." a lot of what happens to this country in 2025 depends on donald trump. you know, it's interesting speaking to ukrainians, there's actually a kind of note of very cautious optimism about the new president. many ukrainians are pretty disappointed byjoe biden. they feel that he hasn't given enough support to ukraine. they think that he gave only enough weapons and money, really, to keep ukrainians fighting and dying and not enough for victory.

but many of them see donald trump as someone who likes to win, someone who likes to do a deal. and the hope here in ukraine is that, as soon as donald trump realises that vladimir putin is in no mood whatsoever to compromise or negotiate in any meaningful way, that perhaps mr trump will swing his support behind kyiv. will vernon in ukraine. a russian cargo ship has sunk in the mediterranean sea. this video — posted on social media — shows the ursa major listing off the coast of spain. the russian foreign ministry says the vessel sank after an explosion in its engine room. two of the 16 crew members are missing. the ship is reported to have been transporting specialised cranes to the russian port of vladivostok. tracking data from marine traffic shows that it left st petersburg on 11 december and had recently passed through the staits of gibraltar. it's the third russian ship to go down in ten days. russia has been accused of using a so—called "ghost" fleet of ships —

which are often poorly maintained and lack proper insurance — to circumvent sanctions. it's not known whether the ursa major was part of that fleet. turning to the middle east... the new syrian general administration has announced that the de facto leader ahmed al—sharaa has reached an agreement with rebel faction leaders to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry. meanwhile, masked gunmen have set fire to a christmas tree in a christian—majority town in hama province.the ruling faction, hts, said the men responsible for burning the tree in suqay—labiyah had been detained. it described them as foreign fighters. local firefighters put out the blaze after the gunmen left. the arson attack sparked protests by christians across syria, demanding that the country's new rulers protect religious minorities. syria is home to many ethnic and religious groups, including kurds, armenians, assyrians, christians and druze.

the islamist hts movement has promised to protect minorities since toppling president bashar al assad earlier this month. christmas celebrations are muted for a second year in bethlehem. this is the scene live in the city, the biblical birthplace ofjesus, where traditional festivities have been scaled back, leaving church leaders to focus on providing spiritual guidance and solidarity during a time of profound grief. 0ur correspondent emir nader is in bethlehem — where he says few have come to mark the birth ofjesus. it is quite incredible to be here as the world begins to celebrate christmas and to see bethlehem looking so quiet for the second year in a row. usually by this time, the main square here, manger square, would be full of children, marching bands, processions. we can see the i,700—year—old church of the nativity, wherejesus is believed to have been born.

usually we would see pilgrims from around the world that would have travelled here to take part, tourists from around the world, but the hotels are empty and many of the shops are shut. that is because many of the people have the war on their mind which is going on in the palestinian territory of gaza not so far away. the cardinal leading the mass tonight, the head of the catholic church here, has just returned from gaza where he addressed a massive palestinian christian group there, and he told the congregation that, "the world is with you, the war will end and we will rebuild." he has said that everything is destroyed in gaza, but the people are not. it is a very solemn mood here obviously, as of today, over 16,000 palestinians have been killed in the war, and people are really hoping for a ceasefire deal to be reached. emir, when it comes to that ongoing war in gaza, for the first time, israel has publicly acknowledged killing the hamas leader

ismail haniyeh in iran. what has the defence minister israel katz been saying? he made a speech yesterday saying that israel took responsibility, for the first time, for the assassination of the political leader of hamas in the iranian capital tehran in july. they hadn't previously acknowledged that. it came as part of quite of a belligerent speech by the minister of defence, after days of exchanges of missile fire with houthi rebels in yemen, who have been sending missiles out of solidarity, they say, with the palestinians in gaza towards tel aviv. the minister of defence, israel katz, directed a speech towards the houthi rebels saying, "we will decapitate you and your leaders in the way we have done with hamas and hezbollah as well." emir naderjoining us there from bethlehem.

pope francis is to launch a special holy year for catholics worldwide. known as a jubilee, it occurs about once every 25 years. francis will signal thejubilee by opening the normally bricked—up holy door of st peter's basilica ahead of christmas eve mass. more than 30 million catholic pilgrims are expected to visit rome during the holy year. for more on this, i spoke to jacob phillips who is a professor of theology about the significance of the jubilee year. every 25 years, there is a year which is understood to be a particularly special year, year of grace and blessings during which catholics are invited to visit rome and walk through a holy door, there are various available, and that walking through symbolises entering into this period of renewal and reconciliation and forgiveness of. and forgiveness. and when it comes to this concept happening every 25 years, just explain to us why

that period between what is such an important time for catholics. it has its origins in the bible, in biblical times during the writing of the old testament or the hebrew bible, there was a tradition ofjubilee years which were times where debts were forgiven, those who were imprisoned or oppressed were released and people who were in exile were invited to come home. i think in today's language, you can understand it as a sort of spiritual and social reset, if you like. in the middle ages, from about 1300 onwards, the catholic church started holding these jubilee years which they read about and studied in the bible and therefore it is understood at a point where the institution itself, which is understood as a divine vehicle in a sense, the institution itself is involved in opening the gates of heaven, the gates of grace and blessing, so that catholics are invited to experience that sense of renewal and homecoming and reconciliation and forgiveness. people will be encouraged

to work for forgiveness in their own lives with those who they have become estranged from. they will be asked to reflect on how they are involved in schemes of oppression or imprisonment. and indeed they will be asked to reflect on their own lives and enter into a period of forgiveness of sin and renewal. professorjacob phillips there. let's get some of the day s other news now. hong kong's government has offered rewards of more than a—hundred thousand dollars for the arrest of six pro—democracy activists living abroad. it brings to 19 the number of bounties placed on people who've fled china's crackdown on rights and freedoms. south korea has become what the un describes as a �*super—aged society', with 20% of the population now over 65. newly released figures show there are just over ten million elderly south koreans out of a total of 50 million. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news.

hello, welcome back. a nasa spacecraft is set to make history today. it will get closer to the sun than any other human—made object. the parker solar probe must survive the radiation and extreme temperatures it will encounter, to solve some of the mysteries about our nearest star. 0ur science editor rebecca morelle has the story. 0ur sun in all its fiery splendour. we've been studying it for centuries, but there's still so much we don't know about it. now the closest—ever encounter is set to finally shed light on our star. three, two, one, zero. nasa's parker solar probe blasted off in 2018, heading to the centre of our solar system. it's been orbiting our star, getting ever nearer, but this latest flyby is taking us to a new frontier — to touch the sun. even though we've had missions that have gone very close to the sun,

that wasn't close enough to get into this sort of magic region where all of this physics and all of this — all of these processes are happening, and the the only way to be able to understand those processes is to fly through them and take the data right where all the action is happening. this mission is breaking records. parker solar probe hurtles past the sun at 430,000 miles an hour. no human—made object has ever gone so fast. it's the equivalent of flying from london to new york in less than 30 seconds. at its closest, it's 3.8 million miles — 6.2 million kilometres — from our star's surface. that's closer than any other spacecraft. it will have to endure scorching temperatures of 11100 degrees celsius as it passes through the sun's outer atmosphere — known as its corona — and this could solve a long—standing mystery. the corona is really, really hot, and we have no idea why.

so the surface of the sun is about 6,000 degrees or so. for the corona — this tenuous outer atmosphere that you can see during solar eclipses — that reaches millions of degrees, and that is further away from the sun. so how is that atmosphere getting hotter? the mission is also studying the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles bursting out from the sun's corona. the probe's even recorded the sounds of the sun. three different types of solar wind. various tones dispersive chirping waves. langmuir waves. and doctor who—like whistler mode waves. when these particles interact with the earth's magnetic field, the sky lights up with dazzling auroras. but this space weather can cause problems, too, knocking out power grids, electronics and communication systems. the hope is the mission can help us to better understand this. but first, the spacecraft has to survive its burning—hot flyby.

i will worry, but we really have designed that spacecraft to withstand all of these brutal, brutal conditions. it's a tough...tough little spacecraft. during this close approach, the spacecraft is out of communication for several days, so the nasa team face a nervous wait over christmas before they can finally discover the secrets of our star. rebecca morelle, bbc news. dr maggie lieu is an astrophysicist at nottingham university — she explained to me what an incredible feat this could be. i think it is really impressive that they are sending this thing towards the sun with, like, this measly little heat shield which is built to withstand just 1300 celsius temperatures. like we heard in the speech previously, the corona reaches temperatures of millions of degrees celsius,

so, so much hotter than what you would expect the heat shield to be able to withstand. but there are not many particles there, it is very thin, so it is kind of like you know you can put your hand in an oven and pull it straight out, but not be burned by the 100 degrees or 200 degrees temperature in your oven, because there are not many particles actually hitting your hand, it is not until you touch a hot pan that it actually hurts because that is something solid. i think in particular, it is even more impressive, because we are right now at the end of an 11—year solar cycle, so the sun goes through 11—year cycles of activity. every 11 years, it gets really, really active, and right now, it is in its most active period, and that is why we are seeing so many auroras this year. that means there are so many solar flares so the parker solar probe will have to dodge them.

the communication to that probe is about eight minutes for it to send a signal back to earth, so you can't really control it from earth, you have to make it autonomous. so it will be out there protecting itself, it has sensors on board which will sense if there is a lot of heat coming on or a lot of light passing through, it will be able to dodge all of that. and a great analogy when it comes to the idea of this often, with so many people sticking their hands in ovens to pull up turkeys, christmas dinners, don't do it if you don't have to and be careful! but in terms of solar flares and the solar winds, it is important to find out about them because? briefly, if you will. it has a huge impact on us, it impacts the space weather, and when large solar storms come, they can wipe out our satellite communications, our phone lines, our internet, it can create radio blackouts, it has

created power blackouts before because of the surging energy that we get. so although it creates these beautiful aurora for us to see, there are huge implications as well. 0ur our thanks to the doctor for that, incredible photos on our website, close—ups on the sun. we'll leave you now with some live pictures of kilauea volcano erupting on hawaii's big island. what you can see down there is some of the lava glowing red. just to let you know, the us geological survey is saying the eruption has stabilised and that there are no immediate threats to infrastructure but we are just keeping an eye on that life shot from hawaii. as if we needed an excuse to bring you a christmas story, i can tell you about

200,000 festive lights, donkeys and a choir. it's the work of richard isles, who's decorated his house to raise funds for a very special charity — our reporter john maguire went to meet him in winterbourne down, in gloucestershire, south—west england. we are at richard isles�* house in winterbourne down, just near bristol. have a look at it. as we've been saying all morning, if christmas lights trigger you, if you struggle, if you go through them one by one before you find the one that's fused the whole lot, just imagine taking on 200,000 lights. richard's doing it all for the taxi charity for military veterans, an amazing charity that takes veterans overseas and around the uk. we've got a couple of donkeys. we've got fred and trev as well. they're going to be starring in the stinchcombe nativity service this afternoon. so, what could be more christmassy than this? we are listening to the frampton cotterell male voice choir singing jingle bells, which you'll be very familiar with, at richard isles�* house. it's actually called

the stone house, but i think we should rename it the light house. absolutely phenomenal. 200,000 lights, as i say, all raising money for the taxi charity for military veterans, which mervyn was also raising money for. we've got... which one's which? is this trev or fred? this is fred. trev�*s just wandered over. he's... oh, no. he's eating some of the christmas lights. disaster! my career just flashed before my eyes. richard... oh, no. don't eat that! tell us all about it. why did you do it? um, i've just got a massive passion for raising money for charity, putting a smile on people's faces. yeah, and that's the reason why i do it. and you chose this charity this year, why? it's the 80th anniversary of d—day this year, so we thought it's the perfect opportunity to raise money for the taxi charity. yeah. and you've been doing fairly well on the fundraising, apart from the fact that somebody stole... they did. ..the donations bucket. somebody stole the box about a week ago.

but since then, we've had massive support from neighbours, friends, family, social media. yeah. and we've raised so much money. it's fantastic. people watching this morning who won't be able to get here to winterbourne down, they can still support you? they can. so, we're on justgiving. if you search for the taxi charity for military veterans and look for the house with the lights on, and that's our page. the house with a lot of lights on. how long did it take? uh, it takes about a week. yeah. hard week's work. yeah, i bet it is. and go on, jerry. jerry is your dad there. what are you saying, jerry? he asked me to come up for a couple of hours. ended up a week's work. storm darragh, all of it. a bit of a graft, wasn't it? it was a graft. bit of a graft. so, you had storm darragh, but the lights stayed intact? they did stay intact. till the donkeys turned up! yeah. exactly that. luckily, it all stayed intact. john, never work with animals! thanks for watching.

hello again. last night, temperatures actually rose rather than fell. it's been an exceptionally mild start to the day today, and it's going to continue that way, as you can see from the yellows and ambers on this chart. the wind direction coming from the south—west, so it's dragging in a lot of cloud from the atlantic. and there's some drizzly bits and pieces, some murky conditions with that, particularly so in western areas, some hill fog. we've also got some showery conditions across western parts of scotland, the north—west seeing windy conditions. but it should brighten up across north—east scotland, north—east england, parts of north—east wales and the west midlands, with temperatures widely 11 to 1a degrees, possibly 15 somewhere in north—east scotland or north—east england. now, through this evening and overnight, we hang on to a lot of cloud. there will be some clear skies. drizzle in the west, again a lot of murk, especially in the coasts and hills, and a weatherfront will start to bring in some

rain across the north and west, but it will still be windy. and it's going to be another mild night. that leads us in through the rest of christmas day. still pulling in this south—westerly, we still have the yellows and ambers across the chart, and a weather front bringing in that rain across the northern and western isles and north—west scotland, where it will still be windy. for the rest of us, though, a largely dry day will see breaks in the cloud, and there will be a lot of cloud. but the breaks will be across north—east scotland, in through north—east england, parts of wales and southern england. and although temperatures won't be quite as high as on christmas eve, christmas day will still feel pleasant for the time of year, with temperatures above average. now, heading on from thursday, boxing day in towards the end of the week, we've got a weather front sinking south, and then it pushes northwards once again. there'll be still a lot of cloud around on boxing day itself. this is our weather front, bringing some rain across parts of scotland and northern ireland. through the day, it will slowly start to retreat northwards and these are our temperatures,

10 to about 13 degrees, so still mild for the time of year. roughly speaking, the average temperatures at this time of year are between about seven and nine degrees. and even as we head into the weekend, things by the end of the weekend start to turn a bit more unsettled and, for the new year, cooler.

now on bbc news... 100 women in conversation. female artists who are put on these huge, huge pedestals scares the living daylights out of me, honestly. singer—songwriter raye has had the kind of year other artists can only dream of. after leaving her label and going independent, she's won six brit awards... i can only describe it as a miracle. ..and is the first woman to have won songwriter of the year. her debut studio album, my 21st century blues, was a critical and commercial hit and it cemented her as one of the top artists in the game right now. bbc 100 women spoke to her about the pressures of social media, being a woman in the industry and going independent. # sleazing and teasing, i'm sitting on him. # all of my diamonds are drippin on him. # i met him at the bar, it was 12:00 or something. # i ordered two more wines cos tonight, i want him. # a little context if you care to listen.

# ifind myself in a position... raye, hi.