Month: March 2022

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has set out measures aimed at combating soaring energy, food and fuel prices, in his Spring Statement. He cut fuel duty by 5p but resisted calls to scrap April’s National Insurance rise of 1.25p

Getty Images Food prices saw their largest rise in February for 10 years as inflation continued to soar, according to official figures. Prices rose by 6.2% in the 12 months to February – the fastest for 30 years – as fuel, energy and food costs surged. Soaring costs are squeezing household budgets, laying bare the

Ukrainian interior ministry via Getty As the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and – within seconds – the building had been split in

Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation A Ukrainian man who survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two has been killed during a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv. Boris Romantschenko, 96, died during Russian shelling of his apartment block on Friday, relatives said. Russian forces have been relentlessly shelling Kharkiv, which lies just

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said it should never have taken the government so long to secure her release. Appearing at a press conference in Westminster, she said: “What’s happened now should have happened six years ago. I shouldn’t

A China Eastern Airlines plane carrying 132 people on board has crashed in Guangxi province, Chinese aviation officials have confirmed. The number of casualties and reason for the crash are not yet known. The crash of the Boeing 737 jet, in a mountainous region, led to a fire in the woods, state media is reporting.

In his hospital bed, little Artem stares into space. He clutches a small yellow toy tractor but says nothing as specialist nurses monitor his condition. The Russian shell that blasted shrapnel into his belly also badly wounded his parents and grandparents as they tried to flee Mariupol. A victim of Putin’s war and he’s not

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson has been criticised for comparing the struggle of Ukrainians fighting Russia’s invasion to people in Britain voting for Brexit. In a speech he said Britons, like Ukrainians, had the instinct “to choose freedom” and cited

Reuters Efforts to rescue hundreds of people trapped in the basement of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol are being hampered by intense battles in the area, the mayor says. Vadym Boychenko told the BBC teams were only able to clear the rubble of the building during lulls in the fighting. Ukrainian

Getty Images Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as “dismal”. Its military advances appear

Getty Images Eight years after Russian troops seized Ukraine’s southern region of Crimea, the event is being celebrated with flag-waving crowds in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium and special lessons in schools. President Vladimir Putin made a special appearance before the crowd. State workers said they had been told to take part. In schools, teachers held lessons

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv has been the constant target of Russian attacks for three weeks. The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway report from the front line where Ukrainian troops continue to repel the enemy advance.

Press Association P&O Ferries has paused its services “in preparation for a company announcement” later on Thursday. The ferry operator said it was not going into liquidation but all ferries had been instructed to stay in port. Union RMT urged the firm to protect jobs amid speculation that hundreds of crewmembers could “be sacked and

Getty Images British-Iranian nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori are back in the UK after being freed from years of Iranian detention. The pair touched down at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire just after 01:00 GMT on Thursday. Their release came after months of negotiations between the British and Iranian governments. After leaving the plane

PA Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran nearly six years ago, has been freed and is on her way to the UK, her MP has said. The 43-year-old was arrested in 2016 and accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied. Tulip Siddiq MP tweeted that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was at

PA Media Boris Johnson will meet leaders in Saudi Arabia later as he tries to build an “international coalition” against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The PM will discuss securing energy supplies from the region, saying the world needed to “wean itself off” Russian oil and gas. But Mr Johnson faced criticism for going on