hugh pym, bbc news. the government is stepping up its diplomatic efforts to counter the threat of russian military action against ukraine. the defence secretary bentime after the pandemic and i think that is what we were talking about today, but we are also talking of deepening our co—operation and building on the 2019 agreement with hungary. hungary has a strong tradition of a very professional and capable armed forces, which is the type of partner that the united kingdom likes to work with, we have right now a hungarian commander of k—for kosovo and hungary forces alongside british forces in cyprus. we think we can do more in the long run and the medium term to strengthen those ties. our correspondent james waterhouse, who's in the ukrainian capital, kyiv, explained how the diplomatic efforts of western allies were being viewed there. ukraine's foreign minister, dmytro kuleba, has called on russia to say, look, if you are going to honour the peace process, then pull your troops back, those 100,000 estimated troops on the border. there are concerns in the eastern donbas region that there is more russian tanks and artillery there, but ukrainian m