Countries were fighting with russia. Our russia editor, steve rosenberg, reports. What we heard from vladimir putin today was a clear warning to the west do not do this, do not allow ukraine to use your missiles to strike russian territory. What we didn't hear from vladimir putin was what russia's going to do if this actually happens. He talked about taking appropriate decisions but without any detail. Now, what might those decisions be? well, in the past, president putin has proposed providing advanced longrange weapons to western adversaries, to strike western targets abroad. He's also suggested in the past deploying conventional missiles within striking distance of america and its european allies. Now, russian officials many times have accused the west of fighting russia, waging war against russia, on the territory of ukraine. Putin made it clear today that if this goes ahead, if western missiles are used to target russian territory, this will take things to a whole new level. So, in a sense, western leaders will have to decide which is greater the risk of escalation or the need to help ukraine and allow ukraine to strike russian territory with these missiles. The british prime minister, sir keir starmer, is currently heading to washington, is expected to discuss the use of such longrange missiles with president biden on friday. Damian grammaticas reports. Two and a half years after vladimir putin launched his invasion of ukraine, and almost nightly russian bombs and missiles continue to batter the country. Strikes launched from deep inside russia. To counter these, ukraine has for months been urging the west to allow it to use the longrange weapons they already supply to hit back, against airfields, logistics and military targets that sustain these assaults, and to blunt the advances russia is making on the ground. For ukraine, the timing, with winter coming, is critical, so on the agenda for sir keir starmer heading to washington with the foreign secretary, whether to greenlight attacks on russian territory. The russian president warned against that. Translation: if this decision is made, it will mean nothingl other than direct participation of nato countries, the united states, european countries, in the war in ukraine. It is their direct participation and this of course significantly changes the very essence of the conflict. This will mean that nato countries, the united states, european countries, are fighting with russia. But momentum is building for western nations to agree to ukraine's request. Earlier this week, david lammy and the us secretary of state travelled to kyiv. Russia has already been using missiles supplied by north korea. Now it's believed to be receiving them from iran, too. This week, we've been reminded of how other authoritarian regimes are aiding putin, with iran going even further in support for moscow by providing ballistic missiles a significant and dangerous escalation. These are the storm shadow missiles the uk already supplies ukraine. Russia warned against doing that, and ukraine has crossed other russian red lines too drone strikes of its own deep inside russian territory, and its recent attack across the border into the kursk region. On his flight, sir keir starmer said it was russia that started this conflict, and ukraine had the right to selfdefence. But he wants discussions with a key ally when decisions of such import are made. Damian grammaticas, bbc news, westminster. An update now on the israelgaza war. A row has broken out between israel and the un over the identities and affiliations of the victims of an israeli airstrike on a school in central gaza. The israeli military says about half of those killed were members of hamas' military wing. It claims that three were employed by unrwa. Philippe lazzarini, the commissionergeneral of unrwa told stephen sackur on the bbc*s hardtalk programme that he believes un facilities and staff are being targeted by israel. What is it like when you hear that, as yesterday, wednesday, six members of your staff have been killed in an israeli bomb attack? this is always absolutely devastating. Yesterday, i was boarding the plane coming from cairo to london when i heard the news. And this happened in a school which was also sheltering, at that time, 12,000 people. And they are in the school because they still believe that the united nations flag can protect them. Yesterday, six staff working in the shelter, providing assistance, organising, in fact, the lives of these families, have been killed. Now, 220 staff since the beginning of the war. The worst, stephen, is to know that maybe tomorrow we will even have more staff being killed. And the question is, when will this end? not only staff is being targeted, but we have also the united nations premises. Two thirds of our installation have now been damaged and more than 500 people have been killed in this installation. You just used a phrase staff are being targeted. Unwra staff. The israelis would absolutely and categorically reject that. They say that, in this particular case, the strike on the school, they had clear, irrefutable information that hamas was using it as a command and control centre, and they took all the measures they could to mitigate the loss of life for those that were not hamas, but were civilians inside the school. I'm not aware of all the measures which have been taken. This shelter, which is a school in nuseirat, few days ago, was used for our polio vaccination campaign. It is sheltering 12,000 people. We have united nations staff living there. We had absolutely no information before the strike. You had no information, but are you categorically rejecting the israeli statement that hamas was using it as a command and control centre? i have absolutely no information. This is an allegation coming from the israelis. I have absolutely no means to verify this information. To the us presidential election now and donald trump has said he will not participate in another debate against kamala harris his rival for the white house. The republican candidate went head to head against president biden injune, and debated kamala harris earlier this week. But mr trump posted on his social media site, truth social, that he's ruling out a third. Let's take a look at some other stories in the headlines. A court in north dakota has overturned the us state's ban on most abortions, clearing the way for the procedure to return. The judge found that the state's constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion before the foetus is viable. Disgraced hollywood movie mogul harvey weinstein has been indicted on additional sex crime charges in new york. A court heard that multiple accusers are prepared to testify against the 72 year old. The united states has imposed sanctions on 16 venezuelan officials. Most are members of the national electoral council or the supreme court. The us treasury said those targeted were involved in what it called mr maduro*s fraudulent and illegitimate claims of victory and the brutal crackdown that followed. The french football league has ordered paris saintgermain to pay more than $60 million in unpaid wages to its former star, kylian mbappe. The club are refusing saying mbappe will have to take them to court. He moved to real madrid on a free transfer over the summer. History has been made with the world's first privatelyfunded spacewalk by civilians. The american tech billionaire, jared isaacman, and sarah gillis, an engineer, carried out mobility tests of their nextgeneration space suits during the 15 minute walk. Previously, only astronauts from space agencies, that are funded by governments, have carried out spacewalks. Nasa hailed the mission as a *giant leap forward' for the space industry. 0ur science correspondent, pallab ghosh has more. Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here earth sure looks like a perfect world. Historic words for an historic moment. 0ut comes the first privatesector astronaut to walk in space. Silhouetted in earth's orbit, billionaire jared isaacman paid millions of dollars for this experience. He remains partly in the capsule, so more baby steps than a walk in space, but a chance to move around in the newly developed spacesuit to test its mobility. We don't need very long out there, and frankly other than the test matrix, we're not building structures on the international space station or repairing anything, so as soon as we get the data that we have, we'll cycle another crew member in and out. That other crewmember is mission specialist sarah gillis. It's her first time in space, and she's already making history, standing outside the dragon capsule. Most crewed spacecraft have an airlock, which is a sealed door between the vacuum of space and the rest of the spacecraft. Normally, it's depressurised when astronauts go in and out. But dragon doesn't have an airlock, so the entire craft has to be depressurised. The nonspacewalking astronauts have to be fully suited up and strapped into their chairs, and extra nitrogen and oxygen have to be added to repressurise the capsule when the spacewalk is over. The astronauts blasted off on tuesday, going further into space since the apollo moon missions of the 1960s and *70s. Their spacecraft reached a maximum altitude of 870 miles above the earth. That's nearly threeandahalf times the distance to the international space station, which is 250 miles. Up until now, every single spacewalk that's happened has been professional astronauts through a government agency, either the soviets or the americans, the russians these days, and so to have the first one that's done commercially is a big step forward for the commercial space sector, and it's going to push the boundaries of what they can do, and it will extend their capabilities, and we're likely to see many more of these in the future. The historic spacewalk now over, and so many firsts already achieved, the crew's attention returns to carrying out experiments before beginning theirjourney home in two days' time. Pallab ghosh, bbc news. Around the world and across the uk. This is bbc news. Researchers say they've solved the mystery of the origins of the seismic signal that shook the earth for nine days last september. They have pinned it down to a massive landslide which caused a tsunami in a remote fjord in greenland. The risk of these arctic landslides is increasing because of climate change, according to scientists as victoria gill reports. A land continuously carved and moulded by vast glaciers. But in one fjord in the east of greenland, a seismic event has transformed the landscape here forever. We're seeing here a simulation of how this seismic signal travelled around the world. When we run this, we'll start to see this wave. This animation shows the signal that baffled scientists for nine days in september of last year. The dots are seismic monitors around the world picking up vibrations from something happening in greenland. At the same time that scientists were puzzling over that, a team working in greenland received a report of a large tsunami in the east of the country. These photographs show what caused it a huge landslide into this fjord. Look at the mountaintop in this image taken before the event. And look at it afterwards the top of the mountain is gone, collapsed into the fjord, taking part of the glacier with it. The scientists analysed the depth and shape of this narrow 200kmlong fjord, and that revealed why the tsunami the landslide caused reverberated around the world for so long. The wave was essentially trapped. The energy of that wave just can't escape, so that wave has tojust keep bouncing back and forth, sloshing back and forth in the fjord, itjust can't go anywhere. Never before has such a long duration sort of largescale movement of water, over nine days, in this case, been observed. Remote as it is, this is a location that cruise ships do visit. Fortunately, no vessels were in the area when the landslide happened, but scientists say the risk of these events is increasing with climate change. This glacier was holding up the mountain. 0ver decades, it melted and thinned, and eventually millions of cubic metres of rock simply collapsed. It's a destructive sideeffect of climate change that was felt around the world. Victoria gill, bbc news. In the us, three major wildfires continue to rage around los angeles, torching dozens of homes and forcing thousands of people to evacuate. Northeast of the city, the line fire has burned around 35,000 acres, prompting the evacuation of several mountain communities in an area popular with tourists. A man suspected of starting that fire has been arrested and charged with arson. While southeast of los angeles, in orange county, eight firefighters were injured tackling the airport fire, which has burned several homes. At least 10,000 people were quickly evacuated the fire moved so fast it surprised fire officials as well as residents. Take a listen. It was pretty scary, a lot more than you realise. When you are outside looking at the flames, you don't realise how scary and chaotic it is. It was like a movie yesterday, going to the gas station. . . Trying to get out here before you get burned. It was scary, a lot more real than you realise. China has kicked off its top security conference the xiangshan forum. The 3day event in beijing has drawn participants from over 90 countries including the us. The rival powers are aiming to stabilise ties amid rising tensions, and beijing is entangled in several territorial spats in its regional back yard. For more on this, we can speak to uschina expert chong ja ian. He's an associate professor of political science at the national university of singapore, and nonresident scholar at carnegie china. Thank you for yawning me. What are you hoping for out of this forum? are you expecting anything concrete? i forum? are you expecting anything concrete? forum? are you expecting anyt