Ukraine and Russia have agreed to a tentative ceasefire involving the Black Sea and strikes on energy infrastructure.

It comes after US officials met Russian and Ukrainian delegations separately in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The agreement could be a first step towards a potential wider ceasefire, but experts caution it won’t change much on the ground in Ukraine.

War latest: Ukraine and Russia appear to disagree on ceasefire timing

Defence minister Rustem Umerov said Ukraine had agreed to “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes”.

However, Russia claimed it depended on Western sanctions being lifted on fertiliser and food companies and ensuring its access to the SWIFT payments system.

President Zelenskyy said he believed the truce was effective immediately and accused Moscow of playing games.

“Unfortunately, even now, even today, on the very day of negotiations, we see how the Russians have already begun to manipulate,” he said.

“They are already trying to distort agreements and, in fact, deceive both our intermediaries and the entire world.”

A White House statement said the US would help “restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports”.

President Trump said his administration was “looking into” Russia’s request to lift sanctions.

A senior official in the Ukrainian government, speaking anonymously to the AP news agency, said Kyiv did not agree to lifting sanctions as a condition for a maritime ceasefire.

They said Russia had done nothing to have sanctions reversed.

While uncertainty remains over the terms of the Black Sea truce, the Kremlin confirmed it would honour a ceasefire on attacking energy facilities until 17 April.

It said oil refineries, pipelines, power plants and substations, nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams were all covered by the deal.

It added: “In the event of a violation of the moratorium by one of the parties, the other party has the right to consider itself free from obligations to comply with it.”

Sky News security analyst Michael Clarke said the Black Sea deal was something the US “can boast about” but won’t massively change anything on the ground in Ukraine.

“The Russians will be quite happy about that because they’ll just keep going down more and more rabbit holes,” he said.

“Unless the Americans are prepared to pressure Russia as opposed to just keeping offering them more advantages, the war will just go on,” added Professor Clarke.

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Earlier in March, President Zelenskyy said he was ready for a 30-day ceasefire that would also include “the entire front line”.

American secretary of state Marco Rubio said the ball was “in Russia’s court” but President Putin has declined to follow suit and named multiple pre-conditions.

Speaking to Mr Trump on the phone last week, he said any long-term deal would require a complete halt to intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine.

Donald Trump has been urged to fire US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth following the leak of highly sensitive war plans – as national security adviser Mike Waltz said he took “full responsibility” for organising the group chat.

The conversation on the messaging app Signal between US officials, including vice president JD Vance and Mr Hegseth, was leaked to American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added to the chat in error.

They discussed plans to conduct airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, which took place on 15 March.

Latest: White House deflecting from scandal

Mr Waltz – who had mistakenly added Mr Goldberg to the Signal discussion – said: “I take full responsibility…I built the group.”

Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader of the US House of Representatives, described Mr Hegseth as “the most unqualified Secretary of Defence in American history” and called for him to be sacked.

“His continued presence in the top position of leadership at the Pentagon threatens the nation’s security and puts our brave men and women in uniform throughout the world in danger,” he wrote.

“His behaviour shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law.

“Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth should be fired immediately.”

Speaking from the White House, Mr Trump downplayed the incident and said he believed the chat contained “no classified information”.

“They were using an app, as I understand it, that a lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use,” he told reporters.

Trump expressed support for Mr Waltz, telling NBC News his national security adviser “has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man”.

The US president said officials would “probably” not use Signal any longer but did not agree to a full investigation of what Democrats have called a major security breach which required high-level resignations.

Included in the conversation on Signal were Mr Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr Hegseth.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe – who were both also in the chat – testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that no classified material was shared.

But Democratic senators have voiced scepticism, noting that the journalist, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, reported Mr Hegseth posted operational details “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.

Republican majority leader, John Thune, said on Tuesday he expected the Senate Armed Services Committee to look into Trump administration officials’ use of Signal.

Read more from Sky News:
UK still confident over US intelligence sharing
What was said in Trump officials’ group chat
What is Signal? And is it really secure?

Meanwhile, the White House has mostly attacked the journalist responsible for the original story instead of admitting culpability. The integrity of Mr Goldberg has been repeatedly called into question.

Posting on X, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Mr Goldberg of sensationalising the story, and White House communications director Steven Cheung called the media coverage of the security breach a “witch hunt”.

Group chat gaffe wouldn’t happen in UK

Deborah Haynes

Security and Defence Editor

@haynesdeborah

If a British defence minister was found to have shared details about a live military operation in an unofficial messaging group with colleagues, they would be sacked.

That President Donald Trump has tried to dismiss the revelation that his top defence and security team not only did just that but accidentally included a journalist in the chat will be watched with deepening horror by US allies and growing glee by American enemies.

In public, the UK government is still insisting security ties with the US are as strong as ever.

But in private there will doubtless be horror – though perhaps not surprise – within Whitehall at this extraordinary lapse in the most basic operational security by the president’s national security adviser, defence secretary, national intelligence chief and even the boss of the CIA.

Any information about plans to – for example – launch bombing raids against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen would ordinarily only be shared on specially designated government systems that ensure classified information is secure.

The fact that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, felt it was acceptable to set up a group on the commercial messaging app Signal – which does provide encryption but is only as secure as the device that it is being used on (so not secure at all if a mobile phone or laptop is compromised) – to discuss plans to attack the Houthis is bad enough.

Read more from Deborah here

The Atlantic has hit back, dismissing those claims. “Attempts to disparage and discredit The Atlantic, our editor, and our reporting follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans,” it said in a statement.

Mr Hegseth told reporters on Monday no one had texted war plans – prompting Mr Goldberg to call those comments a lie during an interview on CNN.

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It remains unclear why the officials chose to chat via Signal instead of secure government channels typically used for sensitive discussions.

The Pentagon reportedly warned of a known vulnerability on the Signal chat app, in an email sent out prior to the publication of The Atlantic article, according to reports by Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

The email reported: “Russia-aligned threat groups are actively targeting the Signal Messenger application of individuals likely to exchange sensitive military and government communications related to the war in Ukraine”.

Employees were told the vulnerability could be mitigated by updating to the latest version of the app and applying proper settings.

Words. Lots of them.

Two statements from the White House – one about negotiations with Ukraine, another about negotiations with Russia.

A version from Ukraine’s president and another from the Kremlin.

Follow live: Black Sea ceasefire deal reached after Saudi talks

Analysing the substance of the US-brokered agreement between Russia and Ukraine requires a sifting of the spin from all sides.

The read-outs from the White House are almost word-for-word, basically just swapping out the names of each country and each president.

But there are notable differences between Ukraine’s take and Russia’s take on what they each signed up to.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy focuses on the potential involvement of third countries to support the implementation of the agreements.

We know he does not trust Vladimir Putin, but it sounds like he doesn’t trust Donald Trump either.

The Kremlin, on the other hand, focuses on the lifting of sanctions against companies exporting food and fertiliser.

In fact, Moscow says those sanctions must go before any ceasefire begins.

If that’s what Moscow expects, there is one big winner: Mr Putin.

Explainer: What is in the Black Sea ceasefire deal

Ceasefires around energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea are progress, but not the peace Mr Trump promised, and at what price?

The man who said he would end the war within a day of taking office won’t win the Nobel Peace Prize for this.

Asked how the ceasefire would be monitored, Mr Trump replied: “Well, they’re going to get together.

“… there’s tremendous animosity, there’s a lot of hatred you can probably tell, and it allows for people to get together, mediate it, arbitrate it, and see if we can get it stopped, and I think it will.”

More words, but ultimately it comes down to actions – the extent to which ceasefires are observed.