As we've been reporting, Finland has confirmed it will formally apply for Nato membership.

The decision has been announced by the country's Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Speaking alongside Finland's president in Helsinki, she says the "important decision" has been reached in "good co-operation between the government and the president of the republic".

She says she trusts the Finnish parliament will debate "this historic decision with determination and responsibility".

Finland's President Sauli Niinisto had a conversation with Vladimir Putin yesterday, during which the Russian leader said it would be a mistake for Finland to join Nato.

Speaking in Helsinki today, Niinisto says it's important to remember Nato membership would not change geography and Finland would still have a large land and sea border with Russia.

But he says he hopes and doesn't doubt that Russia is willing to continue with "daily obligations" that are in the interests of both countries - citing the example of Norway - a Nato member with a border with Russia - being able to maintain a working relationship with Moscow.

Finland's prime minister says she does not think there should be any obstacles to her country joining Nato.

"We haven't had any indication in Nato that there would be any problems for Finland's or Sweden's membership," Sanna Marin says.

"We are already very interlinked and we are close partners of Nato," she adds.

"We have seen some statements that there are some questions still but I think it's very important that we will have these discussions with the countries... in a very calm manner and discuss all the issues that there might be."

President Sauli Niinisto says he spoke to the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan a month ago in which Erdgan said he would support Finland joining Nato, so he says he is "confused" by reports Turkey may object and says he is prepared to speak to him again.

Image source, Reuters

Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin says she hopes the Finnish Parliament will confirm the decision to apply to join Nato in the next few days and says she hopes it will be based on a strong mandate.

Speaking alongside Finland's president in Helsinki, she says they have both been in close contact with Nato member countries and Nato itself thanks them for the support they have received so far.

"In Finland we still have the parliamentary process ahead of us but I trust that the parliament will debate this historic decision with determination and responsibility," she says.

Finnish president Sauli Niinisto confirms his country will formally apply for membership of the Nato military alliance.

Image source, Reuters

Germany is prepared to speed up the process of Sweden and Finland joining Nato, its foreign minister says.

The process of new members joining can typically take up to a year but, according to Reuters, Annalena Baerbock said ministers gathering for the Nato meeting in Berlin had agreed momentum should not be lost.

"Germany has prepared everything to do a quick ratification process," Baerbock tells reporters.

Referring to the possibility of there being a period when Sweden and Finland might not yet be covered by the guarantee that an attack on one Nato member is an attack on all, she says there must be no "grey zone, where their status is unclear".

Her Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly says she hopes any deal for the countries to join can be done "within weeks".

Image source, Swedish Armed Forces

Vladimir Putin's actions have shattered a long-standing sense of stability in northern Europe, leaving Sweden and Finland feeling vulnerable.

Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist described 24 February - when Russia started its war on Ukraine - as the moment the Russian leader proved he was "unpredictable, unreliable and prepared to wage a cruel, bloody and brutal war".

After promising Sweden would never join Nato last November, Hultqvist now talks of the Nordic region's defences being strengthened if both countries sign up.

On Thursday, Finland announced its bid to join the alliance "without delay". Shortly after, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said "we need to take Finland's assessments into account".

Sweden has felt under threat in recent years, with several reported airspace violations by Russian military aircraft. In 2014, Swedes were transfixed by reports that a Russian submarine was lurking in the shallow waters of the Stockholm archipelago.

Two years later Sweden's army returned to the small but strategically important Baltic Sea island of Gotland, after abandoning it for two decades. Gotland is located about 320km (200 miles) north-west of the heavily militarised Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow’s Baltic fleet is based.

The island is seen as strategically vital to the defence of Sweden as well as the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are already Nato members.

Read more on why Sweden and Finland are going from neutral to Nato

Image source, Reuters

Nato must maintain its "open door" policy towards admitting new members, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says.

Ministers from the defence alliance are meeting in Berlin, with Finland and Sweden expected to apply to join.

"Nato's open door policy is essential and if Finland and Sweden decide to apply to join, it is clear that they would strengthen the alliance and European security as a whole," Truss says.

The meeting has agreed Nato must continue to support Ukraine to help it to "push Russia out", she says.

"Putin must face a sustained defeat in Ukraine, Russia must be contained and such aggression must never happen again," Truss says.

"Ukraine's security must come from it being able to defend itself. Allies must support Ukraine's move to Nato-standard equipment, immediately providing artillery, training and the required expertise."

BBC Monitoring

A military facility in Ukraine's Lviv region has been "fully destroyed" by a Russian missile strike, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy says on Telegram.

In recent weeks Russia has been focusing its offensive on the east of Ukraine but sporadic attacks have continued in western areas such as Lviv.

"Four enemy missiles hit a military infrastructure facility in Lviv Region. The facility has been fully destroyed. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties," Kozytskyy says.

He adds Ukrainian air defence systems have shot down two missiles. Earlier in the day Kozytskyy said the missiles hit the facility at 04:30 local time (01:30 GMT).

Image source, .

Hanna Chornous, Siobhan Leahy
Reporting from Kyiv

Emotions were running high in a flat in a residential area of Kyiv. Seven friends gathered at a house party to watch Eurovision, like they do every year.

"It is something that unites us with the whole Europe," says Denys. "For us it is very important to be a part of this. Especially this year."

No parties in a bar or a club are possible in Ukraine because of a curfew in place since the Russian invasion in February. So the group of friends are staying locked in together until 5am.

After a nail-biting wait for results, the winner is announced. The friends rejoice and hug, waving Ukrainian flags and spraying a bottle of prosecco.

"I feel happy, there was so much tension!" Alina, who is hosting the party, says. Her message to the viewers who chose Ukraine as the winner? "You voted for peace, for freedom and future," she says.

"In Ukraine we have war and some say it's not a time to have fun," her friend Natalia explains. "But we need to have fun, we need to live and have understanding and feeling of life."

"Now we see support of the whole world and it feels great."

Image source, Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has congratulated Kalush Orchestra on their Eurovision win and says Ukraine's courage "impresses the world".

The Kalush Orchestra ended their performance in Turin with a plea: "Please help Ukraine, help Mariupol, help Azovstal right now."

No parties in a bar or a club are possible in Ukraine because of a curfew that's been in place since the Russian invasion in February but many Ukrainians watched the contest at home and celebrated the win - and the show of support from other nations.

Inevitably, doubts have already been raised over Ukraine's ability to host next year's contest - an honour and responsibility that traditionally falls to the winners.

Zelensky says Ukraine will do its best to stage the contest while Eurovision organiser the EBU has said it will consider all options for 2023 but conceded the decision comes with "unique challenges".

In a post on Instagram, Zelensky has vowed to one day host Eurovision in a "free, peaceful and rebuilt" Mariupol, referencing the port city that is mostly under Russian control.

Image source, Reuters

As you may have seen last night Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest, in a symbolic show of public support following the country's invasion by Russia.

The rap-folk band, who were given special permission to leave their war-torn country, soared to first place with 631 points, largely on the basis of the public vote across the continent.

Among those congratulating the country is Nato Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana, who says the song was beautiful and its success showed immense public support for Ukraine's bravery.

"So the message we want to send to Mr Putin is that they've started the most brutal and cynical war since the Second World War," Geoana adds.

He says the Russian leader was probably "sincerely surprised by the bravery of the Ukrainian people and by the unity of the political West".

"So I'm saying that we are united. We are strong, will continue to help Ukraine in winning this war," Geoana concludes.

Joe Inwood
Reporting from Lviv

Whether on the road to Kyiv, in the villages of Kharkiv, or on the banks of the Siversky Donets river – the burned-out shells of Russian military vehicles have been some of the defining images of this war.

The claim that Moscow has lost a full third of its ground forces is an extraordinary one – but not beyond the realms of possibility.

The UK's Ministry of Defence also claims Russia is suffering from critical shortages of bridging equipment and surveillance drones.

The MoD says these factors - combined with increasingly low morale - mean Russian advances are unlikely to accelerate over the next 30 days.

Moscow is yet to respond - but given its previous claims about the state of the conflict, it is fair to assume its assessment would be markedly different.

Russia's offensive in Donbas has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule, according to the UK's Ministry of Defence.

Russia refocused its campaign on the eastern region, traditionally Ukraine's industrial heartland, after the initial wider invasion.

In its daily morning update on Twitter on the situation in Ukraine, the MoD says, external: "Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition."

It says Russia is likely to have lost a third of the ground combat force it committed in February and the additional loss of intelligence and critical equipment including drones, will have exacerbated delays in any Russian progress, restricted its manoeuvres and left its forces vulnerable.

The MoD also says Russian morale will be low and combat effectiveness reduced.

"Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days," it concludes.

Image source, .

We're resuming our live coverage of the war in Ukraine, as the country wakes up on Sunday to another day of conflict. Here are some of the key developments:

• Foreign ministers from Nato nations continue talks in Berlin, with the prospect of Finland and Sweden moving closer to joining the military alliance
• Public support for membership in the two Nordic countries has risen markedly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine
• On the ground, Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian troops "far out" from Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, the city's mayor has said
• Meanwhile, Russia's effort in the east of the country - Donbas - has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule, according to the latest assessment from UK military intelligence
• The UK assessment also says Russia has now lost a third of the ground forces used to invade Ukraine
• Away from the battlefield, Ukraine has won the 66th Eurovision song contest - and President Zelensky has said that Ukraine will try to host the competition next year

With that, we're pausing our live coverage of the conflict in Ukraine for the time being.

If you're interested in Ukraine's performance at the Eurovision Song Contest this evening - where they are among the favourites to win - our entertainment reporters are covering this here.

Otherwise, we'll resume our coverage of the Ukraine invasion here in the morning.

Joe Inwood
BBC News, Lviv

Image source, Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely the most political in a long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a general sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

But this year’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will represent Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original choice.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show contestant.

But when it was alleged she had visited occupied Crimea, she was dropped amid public outcry.

Kalush Orchestra, a folk rap group from Western Ukraine, got their chance instead.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is not a real country - but merely a "little Russia", a region that needs reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they will be representing a nation that is increasingly confident in itself.

And therein lies the irony, some would say strategic blunder, at the heart of president Putin’s invasion.

A war predicated on the idea that this country had no national identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.

Image source, Reuters

One of the grim realities of the war is dealing with the bodies of those killed in the conflict - and that includes Russian soldiers.

Reuters tells the tale of specialised refrigerated cold trains being used by Ukraine to store the dead.

"In this refrigerator train several hundred bodies of Russian occupiers are kept. Most of them [were] brought from the Kyiv region, there are some from Chernihiv region, and from some other regions too," an official told the news agency.

Volodymr Lyamzin, in charge of civilian-military cooperation, said the bodies were being stored this way so they could eventually be returned to their homeland.

"According to the norms of international humanitarian law, and Ukraine is strictly following them, after the active phase of the conflict is over, sides have to return the bodies of the military of another country," he said.

There are several such trains dotted around the country, he added.

Wondering what's been happening today in Ukraine? Here are some of the key events:

• It's 80 days since the invasion began, and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says it is hard to predict how long the war will last
• But earlier, in an interview on Sky News, a Ukrainian intelligence official predicted it would be over by the end of the year with a turning point appearing by mid-August
• In a victory for Ukraine, Russian troops have been firmly forced back from the city of Kharkiv near the Russian border, with the regional mayor telling the BBC that the battle has been won
• The G7 group of powerful nations have told the world in no uncertain times they will never recognise borders re-drawn by Russian military action, after a multi-day meeting in Germany
• Finland's President Sauli Niinistö called Vladimir Putin to tell him plainly that his country would apply for Nato membership within days - something Putin warned would be a mistake
• US Republican senators including the Senate leader Mitch Mc Connell met President Zelensky in Kyiv - "a strong signal" of the US support for his country, the president says
• The Azovstal steelworks, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol, remains under heavy artillery bombardment, defenders there say - and even infantry charges
• And finally, it's Eurovision night, and Ukraine is one of the favourites to win - with Ukrainians hoping that a strong public vote will bring yet more attention to the country's struggle

The BBC Ukrainian service is reporting that the Ukrainian army has released two decks of cards depicting Russians they suspect of war crimes.

The idea replicates the set of 55 playing cards that the US military produced in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, depicting what it said were the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein's government.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said the cards were produced with the help of volunteers from the international intelligence community InformNapalm.