Russian forces said they were briefly suspending military action in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to allow in desperately needed humanitarian aid.
It was not clear if Syrian rebel groups were also observing the daily three-hour window.
But UN officials say that is too short to take in enough to help the large numbers of people in need.
Intense fighting has been continuing in Aleppo between rebels and Russian-backed Syrian government forces.
There are also reports of a toxic gas attack on a rebel-held area. Medical staff said four people died and many others were injured.
The gas was thought to have been chlorine dropped in a barrel bomb, said the Syrian Civil Defence, whose volunteer emergency response workers are known as the "White Helmets".
Earlier some of the last doctors in the rebel-held east of the city appealed to US President Barack Obama to come to the aid of the 250,000 civilians there.
All Russian military action, air and artillery strikes was being halted between 10:00 (07:00 GMT) and 13:00, a defence ministry official told a briefing in Moscow on Wednesday.
Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoy said Russia supported the UN's proposal to organise joint supervision of the delivery of humanitarian aid to Aleppo via the Castello road and its military experts were working on this with UN and US representatives.
But UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Stephen O'Brien said that while the three-hour cessation would be taken seriously, a 48-hour break was needed to get enough aid in on trucks.
"United Nations agencies and our partners remain ready to assist the civilian population across Aleppo. We have supplies ready to roll - food rations, hospital supplies, ambulances, fuel for generators, water supplies and more," he said.
"We will continue to use all available routes and mechanisms to do this, including cross-line and cross-border operations from Turkey. We can deliver these within 24-48 hours - if we have safe access."
A representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, Ingy Sedky, said that any initiative alleviating the suffering of civilians would have a positive impact.
"However, our main concern is that as long as there is no consent between all the parties on the ground on the ceasefire I'm afraid this will not allow us to do our job and to deliver safely the humanitarian aid and might put the civilians at risk," she told the BBC.
Fighting has escalated in Aleppo in recent days, with rebels severing the government's main route to the west of the city.
The offensive sought to break a siege by pro-government forces, who encircled the east in July with the support of Russian aircraft.
'World stands by'
Earlier a group of 15 of the last doctors in eastern Aleppo wrote that, in the five years since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began, they had "borne witness as countless patients, friends and colleagues suffered violent, tormented deaths".
"The world has stood by and remarked how 'complicated' Syria is, while doing little to protect us. Recent offers of evacuation from the regime and Russia have sounded like thinly veiled threats to residents - flee now or face what fate?"
They said that in the past month there had been 42 attacks on medical facilities in Syria, 15 of them on hospitals where they work.
On Monday, the UN said countless civilians had been killed or injured over the past few weeks in the city, and that the targeting of hospitals and clinics had continued unabated.
Moreover, attacks on civilian infrastructure had left more than two million people without electricity or access to the public water network for several days, it added.
Source: BBC NEWS
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