hello this is bbc news, the headlines. finland says russia has cut off supplies of natural gas days after finland announced it was applying to join nato. meanwhile in ukraine, russia intensifies its attacks in the donbas region as its forces capture more territory in the south and east. opposition parties demand an explaination from the prime minister after he met with the senior civil servant, sue gray, ahead of the publication of her report into lockdown parties at downing street. joe biden is attending a dinner with south korea s president in seoul. he s there to discuss security and north korea s nuclear programme. as monkeypox spreads worldwide, uk doctors say it could have a massive impact on access to sexual health services. polls close in parts of australia as two political veterans battle it out for the country s top job. now on bbc news click dives underwater to meet the robots designed to look after offshore windfarms, and explores the latest tech being used to
the russian armed forces are now intensifying attacks in the eastern dom bess region of ukraine. they ve made advances after heavy bombardment of ukrainian positions at donbas region. there are now concerns they could turn their attentions to another country, moldova, which used to be part of the soviet union. it is not a member of nato so it is not protected from russian aggression. it lies between romania and ukraine and within it is the russian backed separatist region of transnistria. one month ago there was a series of explosions in the area raising concerns the war could widen. today the british foreign secretary liz truss made clear there is a serious threat which she says russia trying to restore what is described as greater russia. in another move indicating how far russia will go in destabilising countries, it has now been revealed that moscow has cut gas supplies to finland, the country at one of several now hoping to join nato. meanwhile president biden current
president biden and his south korean counterpart have agreed to hold larger military drills and deploy more us weapons if necessary to deter north korea. mr biden who s on his first visit to asia as president, also said he was open to discussions with north korea. our seoul correspondent jean mackenzie joins us now. how significant are these talks? the focus of this trip and talks were supposed to be on how these countries could work more closely together to combat china s growing dominance in asia but as is often the case north korea has managed to dominate. because intelligence over the past few days has shown north korea is getting ready to test a major missile or even nuclear weapon. today the two presidents took the opportunity to urge kim jong un to come back to the negotiating table and they said they were ready and willing to talk to him but this is nothing new, they ve been saying this for years and kim john un has refused to engage and