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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Residents are being evacuated from the besieged Russian-controlled city of Oleshky as humanitarian aid trickles in, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said on Friday.
A truce, brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump, went into effect at 3 a.m. local time Tuesday. The ceasefire appears to have held, raising questions about whether the White House's renewed efforts to secure a broader peace deal for Ukraine, and talks tabled for next month, could bear fruit despite previous rounds failing to reach compromises.
Oleshky, in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, has been held by Russia since Moscow's invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. It sits across the Dnipro River from the regional capital in Kherson, which Ukraine retook from Russia later that year.
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Kherson is one of four mainland Ukrainian regions Russia has claimed to have annexed, although it doesn't fully control the territories.
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The ceasefire, announced on October 23, came after weeks of warnings from international aid groups and officials that the city's roughly 2,000 inhabitants—including around 50 children—were caged in, unable to access food, medicine, clean water and basic hygiene supplies.
The population has shrunk to one-twelfth of its pre-war size, and those trapped in the city were described as eating weeds to survive, the roads leading in and out of the settlement heavily mined. Aerial images of Oleshky taken in recent days showed anti-drone nets stretching across the city's streets and hollowed-out, blackened homes next to piles of rubble.
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Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of causing a humanitarian catastrophe in the city. Ukrainian officials said Russia repeatedly rejected proposals for a temporary ceasefire and land corridor to evacuate civilians in recent months and accused Moscow of shooting down drones ferrying aid to desperate residents.
A Ukrainian official in Oleshky said Russian soldiers had stolen aid packages, that made it through to the city, from Ukrainian residents. Russia claims Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Oleshky and blockaded the city.
Under international humanitarian law, a power occupying a city or an area is responsible for providing essential supplies and services to the civilians still living there.
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Operations Begin, Russian and Ukrainian Delegations Say
Images from inside Oleshky showed buses and ambulances lined up to transport inhabitants on Friday. Ukraine's parliamentary human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said Ukrainian teams had safely reached Oleshky and were working according to agreements struck with Russia's human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova.
Lubinets had said on Thursday demining operations around the city had finished, making the roads into Oleshky accessible.
David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian lawmaker with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's party, said: "Evacuation and distribution of humanitarian aid have begun."
Ukraine is transporting residents who wish to move to Kyiv-held territory, Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky's chief of staff, said on Friday.
Some reports indicate at least several hundred inhabitants have opted to stay in Oleshky. Vladimir Saldo, a Russian-installed official in Kherson, said temporary accommodations for evacuees had been set up in Russia and in occupied areas of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has controlled since 2014.
"Assistance will be provided to everyone who wants to leave and stay in Russia," Saldo told Russian state media.
While Saldo insisted anyone who later wished to return to Ukraine could do so, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials said they fear Ukrainians will not be allowed to come back to Ukrainian soil.
Marc Beckman, senior advisor to Melania Trump, told Ukraine's Ukrinform news agency Russia had assured the U.S. Oleshky's residents would be able to choose where they head when they leave the city.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Dave Siminoff.
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