security official tells the bbc that ukrainian forces are now ready to launch a long awaited counter offensive. the comments come after russian attacks on dnipro and the wagner group s recent claims it has fully captured the city of bakhmut. the head of russia s wagner mercenary group has announced that his forces have started to withdraw from bakhmut. ukraine denies this. the battle for that city has been the longest and bloodiest of the war. now, oleksiy danilov the secretary of ukraine s national security and defence council says an assult to retake territory from russian forces is ready to launch. he s been speaking exclusively to our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. this is what s left of bakhmut, in eastern ukraine. images filmed by russian forces of the ruins they now largely control. mercenaries from the wagner group claim they re withdrawing, being replaced by regular russian troops. but ukraine insists its forces are still engaged on the ground and the o
against russian forces. in a rare interview, oleksiy danilov told the bbc the planned assault was an historic opportunity but the government had no right to make a mistake when making such an important decision. mr danilov has been speaking to our diplomatic correspondent, james landale. we have been talking about this counteroffensive for months, and during that time ukraine has been building up stockpiles of ammunition, it s been taking receipt of tanks and armoured vehicles from the west. it s been training its troops as much as it can. so when we sat down with oleksiy danilov, the man who is at the heart of what is effectively ukraine s war cabinet, it was inevitable that we were going to talk about the circumstances around which this counteroffensive may at some stage begin and this is what he told me. translation: we will figure out | when that will start so we can have that best result at that point of war. it could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a
some breaking news in the past hour the british tv presenter, holly willoughby, has reacted to phillip schofield s admission to a relationship with a younger employee, saying she is hurt. on friday, mr schofield resigned from itv saying he had lied to cover up the relationship, which he described as unwise, but not illegal . itv has said it investigated rumours of the relationship but both repeatedly denied it. our correspondent, katharine da costa, has more on this story. so what has holly willoughby been saying? she willoughby been saying? has been responding to d that she has been responding to do now is that philip schofield had had a younger man on the show, this morning, in 2020. in a statement on her instagram account, holly said, it has taken time to process this news. when reports of this relationship first surfaced, i asked phil if it was true and he told me it was not. it has been a very hurtful to now found out that this was a live. remind us how a big a name
wins this year s palme d or award at the cannes festival. there s been anger today over hours of delays at airports in the uk where passport e gates were not working. the disruption, which began on friday night, had been due to an it issue. the situation has now been resolved. in a statement, the home office said that following a technical border system fault, all e gates are now operating as normal. it went on to thank travellers who were impacted and staff for their work in resolving the issue. graham satchell has been looking at the impact on passengers. gatwick airport described by one passenger today as an utterjoke. these scenes were repeated at airports across the uk. this is manchester, where again there were huge queues for passport control. and at heathrow, arriving passengers were forced to wait more than three hours. we also had one passenger that fainted. this is wayne fenton at luton airport. already been in the queue now forabout 1.5 hours, in fact nearly two
hello and welcome to bbc world news. western leaders have put forward a unified front in their support for ukraine, days before the first anniversary of the russian invasion. a meeting in germany of foreign ministers from the g 7 richest countries agreed to tighten sanctions against moscow and quickly provide more weapons to kyiv. the uk prime minister rishi sunak said that the sovereignty and security of every nation was at stake in the war. we need a military strategy for ukraine to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield to win the war and a political strategy to win the peace. to win the war ukraine needs more artillery, armoured vehicles and air defence. so now is the moment to double down on our military support. when putin started this war he gambled that our resolve would falter. even now, he is betting that we will lose our nerve, but we proved him wrong then and we will prove him wrong again. together we are delivering as much equipment in the next few months a