Aid and Evacuations Begin in Russian-Held Oleshky Under US-Brokered Truce

Ukrainian and Russian delegations arrived in the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian city of Oleshky on Oct. 30 to begin a U.S.-brokered humanitarian mission, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The mission is meant to bring in aid and let residents who want to leave do so safely.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, said people wishing to depart were being prepared for evacuation. Both sides had announced that anyone who wants to leave can do so until 2 p.m. local time, with aid distribution expected to start shortly afterward.

How Oleshky became a cut-off city

• 2022: Russian forces captured Oleshky early in the full-scale invasion that Moscow launched that year.
• Later in 2022: Ukraine retook the regional capital, Kherson, less than 10 kilometers away across the Dnieper River. Oleshky effectively became a frontline city.
• June 2023: The Kakhovka Dam, nearby, was destroyed. An estimated 90 percent of the city's territory was flooded.
• Oct. 27: Ukraine and Russia began observing a localized cease-fire in Oleshky. Melania Trump, the U.S. first lady, had announced the agreement a week earlier. No violations were reported over the following three days.
• Oct. 29: Ukrainian journalist Maria Semenchenko, who grew up in Oleshky, told RFE/RL that some residents fear the evacuation route.
• Oct. 30: The delegations arrived, and Lubinets said on Telegram that he was speaking with residents about the help they need most.

What the mission involves

Melania Trump said civilians from both countries were expected to visit people in their homes to assess their needs. Those who want to leave would receive coordinated help and transportation to the place they choose. "I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine," she said.

Hundreds of residents were expected to return to Ukrainian-controlled territory by an indirect route, RFE/RL reported. It runs through Russian-occupied Crimea to Anapa in southern Russia, then by plane to the Belarusian city of Homel, and finally by bus into Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region.

The two ombudsmen said the designated evacuation routes out of the city, which is surrounded by mines, had been cleared. Lantratova said "tens of tons of humanitarian aid" were being sent in.

Why it matters for the people still in Oleshky

Oleshky once had around 24,000 residents. According to Melania Trump's office, fewer than 2,000 remained by the fall, including around 50 children. Most are believed to be elderly people who could not or would not leave.

RFE/RL reported that for months they have lived in a largely ruined city ringed by land mines and cut off from the outside world, with little to no food, drinking water, medicine or electricity. For them, the mission is the first sign of organized outside help described in the sources.

Not everyone is expected to take the offer. Semenchenko said residents who have lived under occupation for years worry about being subjected to screenings and interrogations in Russian territory, which she said Russia uses to identify people it considers disloyal. She said some residents have been tortured in the past and that she knows at least one person who does not want to leave for that reason. The sources do not include a Russian response to those concerns.

Competing accounts of who is to blame

Kyiv has accused Moscow of failing to protect civilians in the city. The Kremlin has said Ukrainian drone strikes prevented it from doing so, RFE/RL reported.

Ukrainian officials and volunteers previously told the outlet that they believe residents are essentially being held hostage to Russia's military goals. They said the city has been an important staging ground for Russian attacks in southern Ukraine and that residents have effectively served as a human shield for Russian forces. Those characterizations come from Ukrainian officials and volunteers, not from independent findings.

What happens next

The evacuation window was set to close at 2 p.m. local time on Oct. 30, with aid distribution to follow. The sources do not say whether the cease-fire or the mission will continue beyond that day, and they give no final count of how many people left.

Around Prague, based on reporting by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty