Evacuees From Russian-Occupied Oleshky Cross Into Ukrainian-Held Territory
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Residents of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky began arriving in Ukraine on Saturday after evacuation through Belarus under a rare truce brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, the most significant cessation of fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the evacuees had crossed the border in the Chernihiv region. “All of them will receive the assistance they need,” he said, thanking the United States and Mrs. Trump for the mediation. Officials greeted the arrivals with posters reading “you’re not alone” and “we embrace with our hearts.”
Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said the oldest returning resident was 94 and the youngest a baby just over one year old. He gave no exact figure for the number returned. An elderly woman, stepping from a bus, said the residents had escaped from hell; she was embraced by another woman wrapped in a blue-and-yellow flag, and both wept, the SCMP reported.
The route ran west through Russia and north through Belarus. Negotiator David Arakhamia said the Ukrainian delegation and the evacuees set out Friday for Anapa, a Russian city on the Black Sea coast, where they were to fly to Belarus and travel the rest of the way home by bus. Russia’s ombudsman, Yana Lantratova, said the mission concluded “without any incidents.”
Oleshky, across the Dnieper from Kherson, has been under Russian control since 2022 and lay in a “kill zone” near the front line. Food and medicine ran short months ago; former residents said some people were driven to hunt pigeons, France 24 reported. Ukrainian and Russian officials entered the town together on Friday, delivering aid and marshalling those who wished to leave.
The ceasefire, announced by Mrs. Trump last week to permit evacuations and humanitarian deliveries, is due to end Sunday evening. Whether the operation will continue beyond the truce had not been announced.