Oliver Conway

They are now operating, as one Ukrainian put it to us, slightly blind and slightly deaf.

And there are some signs, and I really, really don't want to overstate this, there are some signs that the Ukrainian military has been able to take advantage of this temporary phenomenon in expanding what they call the grey zone or the kill zone, that is the kind of dangerous no-man's land between the two sides.

The Ukrainians feel that they have the ability here, the opportunity, perhaps only a brief opportunity, to make some progress on the battlefield and to push the Russians back.

This has only been a couple of weeks, and we don't really know whether this is working out quite as the Ukrainians hope yet, but it is something that could change the dynamics a little bit.

Paul Adams in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

The European Football Authorities are investigating claims of racism at Tuesday's Champions League match between Real Madrid and Benfica.

The game was stopped after Vinicius Junior said he'd been abused by the Benfica player Gianluca Prestiani, who denies the allegation.

The Brazilian forward had just put Real a goal up, which proved to be the winner.

Our sports presenter, Oli Foster, told me what happened.

Very, very ugly scenes during and after this match.

This is the first leg of a play-off between these two sides to get into the last 16.

And as you said, Vinicius Junior, one of Real's star players, scored an absolutely wonderful opening goal that did...

proved to be the difference between the two sides on the night.

He then went to a corner flag and did a little samba dance, something that Jose Mourinho, which we'll get to in a moment at greater length, the Benfica manager, said that Vinicius Junior was inciting the crowd, just raising the heat on this.

And before the match restarted, as Vinicius Junior and his teammates went back into their own half...

He reacted very, very strongly to what he said was something said to him by the Argentinian midfielder Gianluca Prestiani, who was saying something to, you can see this on the TV camera, saying something to Vinicius Junior, but then he lifted his shirt up.

over his mouth and that is what sparked this response from Vinicius Junior who then ran to the referee Francois Letexier from France who then applied UEFA's racism protocol that was brought in a few years ago he made the cross signal with his arms to say that the match will be paused because there had been an incident of racism now this usually happens when things happen from the stands supporters or chanting of a racist or discriminatory nature are

but this was clearly an allegation from Vinicius Junior that, to his face, Prestiani had racially abused him.

The game stopped for about 10 minutes or so as the referee assessed whether it could continue, whether Vinicius Junior was in the right frame of mind.

Vinicius Junior actually did play the full 90 minutes when the game resumed.