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Ukraine headlines from @bbcworldservice at 6 AM GMT - live updates bbcworldservice.com or shortwave radio in #Ukraine
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Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has accused Russia of resorting to (cont.)

"nuclear terror" after invading Russian forces fired on the country's biggest nuclear power station. Blazes broke out at the Zaporizhzhya plant in southern Ukraine, and in a video message Mr Zelensky warned of dire consequences for the whole of Europe

if these should lead to an explosion. That, he said, would be "the end for everyone". The fires didn't affect the facility's core buildings. The Ukrainian authorities say radiation levels have not risen and the plant is currently safe and accessible to emergency services.

The US Energy Secretary said reactors there were robustly protected and were being safely shut down. Mr Zelensky has spoken with President Biden, who joined him in urging Moscow to stop its military activities in the area.

The people of the port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine are facing a humanitarian emergency with their power and water supplies now cut off by relentless Russian shelling. The northern cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv have again come under fire;

in Chernihiv a Russian airstrike killed at least twenty-two people. The mayor of the capital, Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, has insisted that the Russian invaders have "no chance" against its population as no one supports them. Volunteers are building an extensive network of trenches

to shore up Kyiv's defences. Others are making and deploying giant metal anti-tank barricades nicknamed "hedgehogs".

The President of the World Bank has told the BBC that the war in Ukraine is a catastrophe for the region that will cut economic growth and drive up inflation. David Malpass said that global food prices are likely to increase

as Ukraine's vast exports of sunflower oil, maize and wheat have come to a grinding halt. He also warned of rises in global oil and gas prices as Russian supplies of the commodities have been cut off. But Mr Malpass said it was too early to say whether

whether the global economy was heading for a recession. Mr Malpass said the World Bank was hoping to approve a 350 million dollar aid package to Ukraine within the coming few days.

Refugees from Ukraine are continuing to flood into neigbouring Hungary where authorities in the border town of Zahony have provided trains to help them move on. What's known as the solidarity train, which takes them to the capital, Budapest, is free for those who have fled.

A BBC correspondent there says the service is being used by Ukrainian women and children from Kyiv and towns and villages in central and western Ukraine. He said the only men at the station are from Nigeria, Chad and Uganda who were students in Kharkiv.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York has announced that its superstar Russian soprano, Anna Netrebko, will no longer perform this season or next -- after she failed to comply with their demand that she renounce her support for Vladimir Putin.

It comes as the opera has taken a stand on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it wanted to contribute to the fight against oppression. Anna Netrebko, who over the last two decades has sung in 200 performances., will be replaced by the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska.

European Union interior ministers have agreed that Ukrainian refugees who have fled into the bloc should be given special temporary protection for up to three years. They will be given residence permits, with rights to access the labour market, healthcare and education.

Most of the one millon people who have fled Ukraine are in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Earlier reports from Hungary suggested the government there didn't support the plans. But the Commission described the decision as "unanimous", after some modifications.

The US has announced it is granting temporary protected status to Ukrainians already in the country. It is is for a period of 18 months and covers students, tourists and people on expiring work visas. It will be given to Ukrainians who were in the country on the 1st of March.

The US has imposed a fresh wave of sanctions against eight Russian oligarchs and associates of President Putin, focusing on billionaires active in the oil and property sectors. They include Alisher Usmanov, owner of a giant mining company (Metalloinvest),

described by the White House as one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals. The Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, is also sanctioned. The action brings the United States further into line with measures taken by the the European Union earlier this week.

In the meantime, Russia's space agency has said it will stop supplying rocket engines to the US in retaliation for its sanctions over Ukraine, The head of Russia's space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said that in future, they can fly using broomsticks.