内容摘要："I have ambitions of accessibility across industries and products and creating real societal changes," said Ms Flemington-Clare.

"I have ambitions of accessibility across industries and products and creating real societal changes," said Ms Flemington-Clare.

No children were in the kindergarten. Yurchenkove, like all the border villages, had only a few elderly or infirm civilians.The kindergarten must have been abandoned months ago. Grass was advancing across the slides and toys in the overgrown front garden.

A man on a motorbike loaded with a bedroll and few possessions, who looked as if he was leaving too, said he didn’t know how the fire was caused, but it wasn’t a shell.Whatever started it, no-one in the deserted, desolate village tried to put the fire out, as it licked and crackled through the kindergarten’s wooden walls and tin roof.Russia has been on the offensive in the Kharkiv oblast, or province, since its forces crossed the border on 10 May.

President Putin said the plan was to establish a buffer zone, to protect civilians in Belgorod, the Russian city on their side of the border, where he says Ukraine is killing civilians.The offensive extends the active front line, forcing Ukraine to reinforce the Kharkiv sector, leaving holes elsewhere which Russia might try to exploit.

We followed Vika and her minibus into the border area, staying well clear of Vovchansk, the frontier town at the centre of the current fighting that is being reduced to rubble.

Even from a few miles away, it looked like a hell-hole, with angry grey clouds and columns of smoke rising high from a series of big fires, and black smoke spiralling and twisting into the sky from fresh explosions.Lenders have been locked in intense competition for borrowers in recent weeks, which has led to consistent falls in the interest rates charged on new fixed mortgage deals.

This has led to more activity among buyers and sellers in the UK housing market.But one lender, the Coventry Building Society, is putting up mortgage rates on Friday, and others are expected to follow suit in the coming days.

“The mortgage market has seen rates falling in recent months but that may be coming to an abrupt halt," said David Hollingworth, associate director at broker L&C Mortgages.About 1.6 million existing borrowers had relatively cheap fixed-rate deals expiring this year. Hundreds of thousands of potential first-time buyers have been hoping to get a place of their own with their first mortgage. All would welcome low mortgage rates.