Bengaluru, 24 March

U.S. and Russian negotiators sat down in Saudi Arabia on 24 March for talks on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine. This was hours after a round of talks between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations ended. The talks began in the capital, Riyadh, the state TASS and RIA-Novosti news agencies said. Another contact between the U.S. and Ukrainian teams is expected to follow the meeting. The separate meetings will discuss details of a pause in long-range strikes by both Russia and Ukraine against energy facilities and civilian infrastructure, as well as a halt to attacks in the Black Sea to ensure safe commercial shipping.

Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle on Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries' leaders, but the parties offered different views about which targets would be prohibited from attacking and accused each other of undermining efforts to reach a truce. While the White House said "energy and infrastructure" would be covered, the Kremlin announced that the agreement referred more narrowly to "energy infrastructure." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he also wanted to protect railways and ports. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted on 21 March that the agreement between Trump and Putin only referred to energy facilities, adding that the Russian military was following Putin's order to halt such attacks for 30 days. Peskov accused Ukraine of derailing the partial ceasefire by attacking a gas metering station in Sudzha in Russia's Kursk region. 

Ukraine's military general staff rejected Moscow's accusations and blamed Russian forces for shelling the Sudzha gas metering station, which Peskov dismissed as "absurd." As talks on a partial ceasefire progressed, Russia launched drone attacks in Ukraine overnight on Saturday, killing at least seven people, including a father and his 5-year-old daughter in the capital, Kyiv. 

In a televised statement on 23 March, Zelensky said that "since 11 March, a proposal for an unconditional ceasefire has been on the table, and these attacks could have stopped already. But it is Russia that continues all this". "There must be more pressure on Russia to stop this terror," Zelensky said, adding that it depends on "all our partners - the US, Europe and other countries around the world".

Zelensky has insisted that Ukraine is ready for a full, 30-day ceasefire proposed by Trump, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has conditioned a full ceasefire on a halt to arms supplies to Kyiv and a suspension of Ukraine's military mobilisation - demands that have been rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said he expected "some real progress" in the talks in Saudi Arabia, "particularly because it affects the Black Sea ceasefire on ships between the two countries, and from that you will naturally move to a full firing ceasefire".

As for the talks between Ukrainian and US representatives in Riyadh on Sunday, Zelensky said they were held at a more "technical level" than similar meetings last week, this time involving representatives of Ukraine's military, energy ministry and diplomatic corps.

"Our team is working in a completely constructive way, and the discussions are quite productive. The work of the delegation continues," Zelensky said. "But no matter what we are discussing with our partners right now, Putin must be forced to issue a real order to stop the attacks, because the one who brought this war on must take it back." Cyberattack on Ukrainian Railways. Ukrainian state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia was hit by a "large-scale targeted cyberattack" on its online services on Sunday, the company wrote on Telegram, adding that the restoration of its systems was ongoing as of Monday morning.

The company said the cyberattack did not affect train movements or schedules, but online purchase of tickets is currently unavailable. "Railways continue to operate despite physical attacks on the infrastructure, and even the most blatant cyberattacks cannot stop it," the company wrote.

Russian troops fired 99 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine on Sunday night, of which 57 were shot down and 36 disappeared from radars, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. The remaining drones caused damage in at least five regions of Ukraine, the air force report said.

In the Kiev region, one person was injured overnight when a Russian drone struck a residential area. "The man has minor shrapnel wounds on his stomach, chest, thighs and head," Mykola Kalashnik, the acting head of the Kyiv region, wrote on Telegram on Monday.

In the Kharkiv region, a Russian drone struck a residential building in the village of Velika Babka, injuring a 25-year-old man and a pregnant woman. Both were hospitalized, regional head Oleh Sinyhubov said on Telegram on Monday morning.

In Zaporizhzhia, Russian drones damaged several houses of local residents overnight, including an elderly woman who suffered light injuries, regional head Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.