Scores of people have been injured as a Russian missile strike hit a hospital and residential buildings in Ukraine as United States and Russian officials held ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia.
Officials in the Ukrainian city of Sumy said 65 people, including 14 children, were injured as the missile attack on an industrial facility hit the the civilian buildings.
Head of the Sumy regional administration, Volodymyr Artyukh said Russia "launched a rocket strike on the city centre" and damaged several high-rise buildings and a school.
"The children were in a protective structure and were evacuated," he says, before adding "all are alive".
"Rescue services are working to eliminate the consequences and extinguish the fires," Artyukh added.
Sumy, about 30 km (18.6 miles) from the Russian border, as well as the surrounding region, is subject to constant drone and missile strikes by Russia.
The latest came as negotiations between the US and Russia on a partial ceasefire commenced on Monday morning in the capital Riyadh.
The meeting is due to be followed by another contact between US and Ukrainian negotiators over a 30-day truce.
Russian forces also launched a barrage of drone strikes across Ukraine overnight into Sunday that killed at least seven people, including a father and his five-year-old daughter in Kyiv.
A further three died from Russian strikes on Kyiv on Sunday, local officials confirmed on Monday.
Both meetings are set to discuss details of a pause in attacks targeting energy facilities, such as crude refineries and power stations, while also ensuring the safety of merchant shipping in the Black Sea.
Last Wednesday, Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle to a limited ceasefire after US President Donald Trump spoke with the countries' leaders.
However, while the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the proposal referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin — who launched his illegal invasion of Ukraine three years ago — claims a complete ceasefire is only conditional if the US and its allies suspended all weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would like railways to be protected.
Ukraine’s state-owned rail company, Ukrzaliznytsia, on Monday posted on Telegram that it has been targeted by a ‘systemic, non-trivial and multi-level’ cyberattack
“There must be more pressure on Russia to stop this terror,” Mr Zelensky said in a statement following his nation’s talks with US officials on Sunday, adding that peace “depends on all our partners”, including the US.
“Our team is working in a fully constructive manner, and the discussion is quite useful. The work of the delegations continues,.
“But no matter what we're discussing with our partners right now, Putin must be pushed to issue a real order to stop the strikes, because the one who brought this war must be the one to take it back.”
There must be more pressure on Russia to stop this terror
Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov posted on X that conversations with the US have so far been ‘productive”, while Mr Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News Sunday that he expected “some real progress” during talks.
Despite optimism from Washington and Kyiv regarding a peace deal, Moscow has signalled that ‘difficult negotiations’ lie ahead.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned: ‘We are only at the beginning of this path.’
More than 148,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, as well as Ukrainian citizens, are estimated to have been killed in the war, figures released by Kyiv, the United Nations and open-source data published by the BBC suggests.
