Hundreds Evacuated From Occupied Oleshky Under Kherson Ceasefire
Hundreds of residents left the devastated, Russian-occupied town of Oleshky on Friday. It was the first joint relief operation of the war, made possible by a ceasefire across the Kherson region brokered by Melania Trump. A convoy of 25 buses had four hours to take out up to 750 people. Several hundred residents, most of them older, chose to stay. Those heading for Ukraine must travel through Crimea, Anapa in southern Russia and Belarus.
Ukraine’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, went in with his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova. He is the first Ukrainian official to visit occupied territory since the full-scale invasion. “The problem is that a lot of people are staying,” he said. About 2,000 people remain, and some say they have lived on a cup of rice or buckwheat a day. The Kremlin called the operation a special case that was “difficult to extrapolate” to the wider peace effort. The ceasefire, the longest and widest since 2022, is due to end on Sunday.