Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

Image source, Official news of Sumy Regional State Administration/Telegram

Russia has carried out a missile strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, local authorities say.

The Sumy regional administration head, Volodymyr Artyukh, has posted a video from the scene, where he says several residential high-rises and a school have been damaged.

As explosions are heard in the background, Artyukh says the schoolchildren were not hurt because they were in a bomb shelter at the time of the attack.

Other videos posted by the regional administration show damaged buildings and smoke billowing from apartments.

Image source, Official news of Sumy Regional State Administration/Telegram

Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

Image source, EPA

Vladimir Putin has held a telephone conversation with his United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in which the Russian president thanked him for mediation in prisoner exchanges with Ukraine, the Kremlin says.

They also discussed Russian-American talks on Ukraine, the statement reported by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, external says.

“The UAE president supported the efforts undertaken by Russia and the US, and particularly welcomed the consultations between expert groups in Riyadh today,” RIA Novosti said.

In the most recent example of UAE mediation, Ukraine and Russia swapped 175 prisoners of war each on 19 March. In all, the UAE says about 3,000 prisoners of war have been swapped by the two countries with its mediation.

As crucial talks continue, US tries to live up to optimistic expectationspublished at 12:50 GMT 24 March

12:50 GMT 24 March

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent, reporting from Riyadh

The glittering opulence of Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton hotel is the venue today for crucial talks aimed at pausing at least aspects of the war in Ukraine.

The Russian delegation is on one floor, the Ukrainians, all 25 of them, are on another.

The Americans have been meeting both, trying to live up to the rather optimistic expectations of President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

The Ukrainians say their talks last night were productive. They brought with them technical experts from the Energy Ministry as well as diplomats and naval officers to discuss how to safeguard Black Sea shipping lanes.

The Russians are keen to revive a moribund deal in the Black Sea which allowed them to export farm produce and fertiliser in exchange for refraining from attacks on Ukrainian shipping.

Ukraine’s delegation here is keen to hold a news conference and they hope to do so once the US-Russia talks are concluded.

Ben Hatton
Live reporter

Image source, Reuters

It's lunchtime in London and just gone 15:30 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the US is continuing efforts to broker a ceasefire deal in the Ukraine war. So, what's the latest?

US-Russia talks: In a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Saudi Arabia, talks between Washington and Moscow delegations are ongoing. The safety of shipping in the Black Sea is a focus of the discussions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says - in our earlier post, we unpacked what this means.

US-Ukraine meeting: Sunday's talks between Kyiv and Washington were "productive and focused", Ukraine's defence minister said. Their delegation remains in Riyadh, at the same hotel, but there are no plans for the opposing sides to meet. Ukrainian adviser Serhiy Leshchenko says further talks will take place with the US.

The war continues: Both Ukraine and Russia launched overnight drone attacks. The Russian military says they intercepted 28 Ukrainian drones overnight, while Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) say they used US-made Himars missiles to destroy four Russian military helicopters. Ukraine's state-owned railway company says its online systems have been hit by a "multi-level" cyber-attack.

BBC's analysis: Diplomatic correspondent James Landale unpacks the confusion and uncertainty over the topics of discussion in Riyadh. Security correspondent Frank Gardner says today's aim is to come up with a kind of "ceasefire light", focusing on the Black Sea.

Image source, Getty Images

The Ukrainian delegation remains in Saudi Arabia for further talks with the US, an adviser tells Ukrainian news agency Unian, external.

Serhiy Leshchenko says they remain in Saudi to continue conversations with the US. He said such negotiations do not last just one day and can go on for months.

"We just have to understand that the meetings will be quite regular, and not every meeting ends with public statements," he says.

The talks with the US are about "infrastructure and shipping safety" and a mutual ceasefire, Leshchenko says.

Asked whether any results from the talks could be expected by Easter (20 April), he says that is a good "symbol" but "in the realities of war it may not necessarily work".

As peace talks between US and Russian negotiators take place in Saudi Arabia, Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of the Ukrainian parliamentary foreign affairs committee, has been telling the BBC of his doubts that any peace deal to end the war in Ukraine will be honoured by Russia.

"We don't have high expectations. Everything depends on Putin and he is not interested in a ceasefire or peace, and he is a major hurdle on the way to a ceasefire," Merezhko says.

"Ukraine has agreed unconditionally to Trump's ceasefire proposal. Russia, Putin, has rejected it."

He says it would be "great" to at least have a partial ceasefire with regard to energy infrastructure "but we have seen many times that Putin makes the promise, and then he violates it immediately".

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said yesterday he was hopeful meetings with both Ukraine and Russia would bring "real progress".

However, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dampened expectations, telling reporters "We are only at the beginning of this path".

The website for Ukrainian railway service Ukrzaliznytsia still appears to be down following a large-scale cyber-attack on Sunday.

The company said trains continued to move, adding that it was trying to keep queues in Kyiv down by doubling the number ticket offices open.

Queues are currently about 15 minutes long, it says.

Earlier, the railway firm said it was cooperating with Ukraine's security service and had "implemented backup protocols".

The attack was "very systemic, non-trivial, and multi-level", it added.

What can we tell from Ukraine’s footage of 'destroyed helicopters'?published at 10:50 GMT 24 March

10:50 GMT 24 March

By Joshua Cheetham

Earlier we reported that Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) said they’d destroyed four Russian helicopters “behind enemy lines”.

BBC Verify has analysed footage shared by SSO’s official X account, and located it to Russia's Belgorod region, on Ukraine's north-eastern border.

The black and white video appears to have been filmed by a drone, flying over fields.

One of the fields has a distinct shape, and we matched it to a location near a settlement called Ivnya. This is over 50 miles from the border with Ukraine.

It’s not possible to make out the helicopters, or what exactly caused the explosions, due to poor quality of the footage. A caption says the attack was carried out with a US-made HIMARS rocket system.

We can't tell when exactly the video was filmed either. But we know it was likely uploaded to social media recently, since no results were returned after were put several keyframes into search engines like Google and Yandex.

Image source, X/@DefenceU

Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

We can bring you more now from Peskov's briefing.

He says the Russian military is honouring Vladimir Putin’s pledge not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure - a commitment he has been accused by Ukraine of breaking.

“There have been no other orders from the president yet. And our armed forces are carrying out all instructions from the commander-in-chief.

"Of course, we are watching the situation closely. And our American counterparts have are able to watch it and draw relevant conclusions, too,” he adds.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

The safety of shipping in the Black Sea is a focus of the talks between Russian and US delegations in Saudi Arabia today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says

“This was President Trump’s suggestion, and President Putin agreed to it,” Peskov said at a daily briefing.

He added that both Russia and the US were “willing and ready to move along the path of peaceful settlement” in Ukraine.

“Indeed, there is common understanding here,” he said.

As our diplomatic correspondent James Landale outlined in his previous post, Russia has indicated it wants to "resume the so-called Black Sea initiative".

Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and maize - transporting about 6.5 million tonnes abroad a month before Russia's invasion. This dropped dramatically after the fighting started, which caused prices to soar and particularly affected poorer countries.

The Black Sea initiative, agreed in July 2022, saw cargo ships travel to and from Ukrainian ports along a 357-mile (574km) corridor across the Black Sea to the Bosphorus Strait - in exchange for relief on sanctions.

After that deal ended, Ukraine established a new "temporary export corridor" in August 2023, which hugged the western coastline.

Speaking to Reuters, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk says as of now, Ukraine is "in control of the situation at sea", adding that the talks would "not really change anything".

Ukrainian opposition MP Oleksiy Goncharenko tells the BBC a ceasefire at sea would bring benefits to Russia.

"But if we will include the stopping of attacks on port infrastructure, stopping of launching missiles from Russian military vessels in the Black Sea, that can be a good step," he says.

Image source, .

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent, in Kyiv

What exactly is being discussed in Riyadh today? There have been mixed messages.

The US readout of last week’s Trump-Putin call said the talks would focus on implementing "an energy and infrastructure ceasefire". The Ukrainian account of the Trump-Zelensky call concurred, speaking of pausing strikes on "energy and other civilian infrastructure".

On the US broadcaster CBS yesterday, the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, spoke of an "aerial ceasefire" that he seemed to believe was already in place. But the Kremlin readout of the Trump-Putin call referred to pausing strikes only on "energy infrastructure facilities".

One thing is clear: Russia has continued attacking civilian infrastructure from the air and both sides have accused each other of striking energy targets.

There is also confusion about the Black Sea. The US readouts - and Waltz - spoke of a "maritime ceasefire". But the Kremlin spoke only of wanting "to resume the so-called Black Sea initiative", a now defunct limited deal that allowed the safe navigation of grain and fertiliser shipping through demined sea corridors.

There is also uncertainty about the ambitions of this week’s talks. They’ve been described widely as technical talks to implement last week’s political agreements.

But the US has expressed hopes of both "implementing and broadening the partial ceasefire". Waltz even raised the idea of starting talks about agreeing "a line of control" between both sides, and the verification and peacekeeping of any ceasefire.

Image source, Getty Images

Talks with Russia and the US are under way in Riyadh - the complete list of who is around the table has not been announced, but according to the Reuters news agency, negotiators include:

For the US:

• Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council
• Michael Anton, a senior State Department official, are leading the delegation

For Russia:

• Grigory Karasin, leading the Russian delegation, is a career diplomat and chair of the international affairs committee in the upper house of parliament
• Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the head of the Russia's FSB security agency

Image source, Reuters

• Talks under way: Talks have begun in Saudi Arabia between the US and Russia on a possible peace deal in Ukraine. The aims for today's discussions is to come up with a kind of 'ceasefire light', focused on the Black Sea, our Security correspondent, Frank Gardner, writes, with Russia reportedly keen to revive the 2022 grain deal
• 'Focused and productive': Separate talks between the US and Ukrainian delegation took place last night. Ukraine's Defence Minister Rustem Umerov described the discussions as "productive and focused"

• Overnight attacks: Away from Riyadh, attacks in Ukraine and Russia are continuing. Ukraine says it shot down 57 out of 99 Russian drones overnight, while Russia says it intercepted 28 drones
• Helicopters destroyed: Meanwhile, Ukraine's Special Operations Forces say they destroyed four military helicopters in Russia's Belgorod region with US-made Himars missiles

We'll be bringing you the latest from the talks here throughout today - stay with us.

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent, reporting from Riyadh

Image source, File photo

Inside the opulent confines of Riyadh’s closely guarded Ritz-Carlton hotel, Russian and US negotiators are sitting down to talk through the details of a partial ceasefire.

The Ukrainian delegation is in the same building - but there are no plans for the two opposing sides to meet.

Optimistic US ambitions for ending this war have had a head-on collision with reality. Finding common ground for even a partial ceasefire is proving a highly complex task.

This is not something that can be solved quickly. So today, the aim is to come up with a kind of "ceasefire light", focusing on the Black Sea.

Russia is reportedly keen to revive a 2022 grain deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey, that allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea without being attacked by Russia.

In return, Russia would export farm produce and fertiliser through the Black Sea, getting some relief from crippling western sanctions. Russia pulled out of that deal in 2023 complaining that sanctions were still in place.

Even getting this deal approved today would be a start. But it is still a long way from ending Europe’s worst conflict since World War Two.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) say they have destroyed four military helicopters parked at a concealed location in Russia’s Belgorod region.

The SSO says US-made Himars missiles with cluster munitions were used to destroy two Ka-52 strike helicopters and two Mi-8 transport helicopters.

According to the statement on social media - which also contains drone footage of the attack, external - the helicopters had been used against Ukrainian forces.

Himars launchers rely on intelligence supplied by the US, and their use by Ukraine is believed to have been hampered by Washington’s recent suspension of intelligence sharing.

Image source, Reuters

Ukraine shot down 57 out of 99 drones launched by Russia overnight, the country's air force says.

Another 36 imitator drones did not reach their targets, it says, not specifying what happened to the remaining six drones.

On Sunday, Russian strikes on Kyiv killed three people and left several injured, local officials said. One witness said "everyone started screaming and running" as debris hit an apartment block.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday "these attacks are a daily reality" and that "new pressure on Moscow" was needed to bring an end to the war.

Image source, Getty Images

Journalists have been asked to leave the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, where talks between the US and Russia have begun, according to Tass news agency.

Both Tass and al Arabiya are reporting that the talks are under way behind closed doors.

Image source, EPA

As we've been reporting, US negotiators are in Saudi Arabia to hold talks with both Ukraine and Russia.

Last night they met the Ukrainian delegation - led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov - behind closed doors.

Umerov described the talks as "productive" in a post on X, external, saying they addressed key points, including energy, and were working to make Zelensky's goal of securing "a just and lasting peace" a reality.

He said these were "technical" discussions, focusing on how best to safeguard energy facilities and critical infrastructure.

Black Sea shipping lanes are also under discussion, with Russia reportedly keen to revive a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain from its ports without being attacked, in exchange for relief on sanctions.

Now it's Russia's turn, with Russian state news agency Tass reporting the talks were due to begin at 07:00 GMT.

Among the Russian delegation are Grigory Karasin, a career diplomat and chair of the international affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to Russia's FSB security agency.

US President Donald Trump has set his sights on achieving peace, but whether that will happen and how quickly is yet to be seen.

As the US-Russia talks begin in Riyadh, let's turn to some news from Ukraine, where the country's state-owned railway company says its online systems have been hit by a large-scale cyber-attack.

Ukrzaliznytsia says it first reported disruption to its systems on Sunday, calling it an IT failure.

"The railway continues to move despite physical attacks on the infrastructure, not stopping it even with the most vile cyberattacks!" Ukrzaliznytsia says on Telegram, adding that train traffic is stable and running without delays.

The railway firm says it's closely cooperating with the cyber department of Ukraine's security service and "has implemented backup protocols".

The attack was "very systemic, non-trivial, and multi-level", it adds.

It follows a Russian drone attack the company says hit electricity systems powering railways in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region on Wednesday.