nothing as windy as we saw earlier on in the week. that hello. ukraine doesn t deny shooting down a russian plane inside russia, killing we re told, ukranian prisoners. 700 days in how dangerous a moment is this? our defence editor, mark urban, is here to explain the significance. ukraine nears the second anniversary of russia s invasion full of uncertainty has western commitment faltered? and how much more can they send even if they want to? we ll ask a ukrainian mp and the former us ambassador to nato. coming up. what do the post office scandal, me too, newsnight s investigation into university hospitals birmingham foundation trust and the tavistock gender identity clinic have in common? all featured whistleblowers and some of them weren t protected by the law that s supposed to keep them safe. time for a new whistleblowers bill, say these two women. we ll talk to the chair of the parliamentary group on whistleblowing and the head of whistlebowers uk in ten minutes. a
sweden also expected to announce its intention to join the alliance. the kremlin reacting this morning, by calling finland s joining nato a threat to russia. on the battlefield in ukraine, ukrainian armed forces have acknowledged russian advances in some areas of the east. their scale, however, difficult to measure. plus, ukraine is now offering exchange of russian prisoners of war for the safe evacuation of injured ukrainian soldiers from the surrounded azovstal steel plant in mariupol that has become their last holdout. for the first time, russian civilian has reportedly been killed on russian soil by cross border shelling from ukraine. of course, many ukrainian civilians, many thousands killed by russian shelling so far in this war. nic robertson is in helsinki, finland, and sara sidner in kyiv. nic, let s begin with the impending expansion of nato, particularly finland s joining and expected that sweden will follow. finland, a neighbor of russia, resisted this step for
forces have made some progress, pushing russian forces back from kharkiv. that s progress, but that russian forces and they have been focusing their attention and pressure there lately have apparently made some gains in the east. i wonder are you concerned that russia is making progress in the east? you know, we re not concerned about russia. we re only concerned about us as ukraine and supporting us every day. with that to say, you mentioned my home city kharkiv which also a safe shield for the whole region, in the east, including donbas. the plan was to conquer it also within several days, which failed. now we have so many towns that were liberated and that have been next to them. and, you know, the stories that you reporter just has been telling, we have so many of them over there. and as i said, months ago, on
coming to the transnistria where the troops are already concentrated. so we are trying to pose that. and with land lease, that would be possible. let me ask you this, because russia pulled back from kyiv, they seem to be pulling back from kharkiv for now, focusing their forces on the east, and some gains, though the u.s. military does not believe they can make it all the way to odesa, for instance. are you concerned that russia will take, solidify control of that territory and then therefore still slice off another large piece of ukraine? even with their setbacks to still have taken more ukrainian territory away, successfully. we are definitely concerned about the fact that we have to mobilize all our efforts for the east and the south currently. but let s not forget about our neighbor belarus, which was also misused in the second world war by the ussr and it is today the
we have some shortages in terms of access to some smaller cities. and one of the heroes cities. which is of course, mariupol, becoming second aleppo. or symbol of this glorious fight of ukrainian nation. against russian invasion. russian occupation. there are many more officers in mariupol, which is the smaller cities next to them. for instance, my home city kharkiv. and far in the east where is 40 minutes from the russian border. the city of resume, which is often slated as reason. or the city of . we are trying to do our best to have our volunteer groups, which are operating on the ground, can reach out to the