Dmytro had not seen his wife Larisa for 1,711 days.
Waiting near the border between Ukraine and Belarus, his nervous eyes were on the horizon, looking for the bus carrying Larisa and others fleeing the occupied southern Ukrainian town of Oleshky.
When the couple finally reunited on Saturday afternoon, both wrapped in Ukrainian flags, Dmytro didn’t hold back. He kissed her over and over again and held her in his arms with such a determination that it looked like he’d never let go of her again.
Larisa lost a third of her body weight over the past few years. At just over 90 pounds, her tiny shoulders looked lost in Dmytro’s hands. But her deep set blue eyes were sparkling with joy.
Hundreds of people – and many pets – arrived back in Ukraine on Saturday afternoon after being evacuated from the frontline city under a ceasefire that Pope Leo XIV called for and first lady Melania Trump helped to negotiate.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the arrival of the evacuees on Telegram, thanking Trump for the mediation.
“And I thank everyone in the world—all journalists, all political and civic leaders, and all concerned people—who drew global attention to the situation in Oleshky and the genuine humanitarian catastrophe in the territory of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia. When the world pays attention, people are saved,” he said.
Dmytro, whose last name cannot be published for security reasons, is a soldier in the Ukrainian military which made Larisa vulnerable when Russia took over Oleshky, their southern Ukrainian hometown.
The couple managed to get their daughter out, but Larisa was worried that if she tried to leave, she’d be picked up at a Russian military checkpoint during filtration – the humiliating and often violent questioning Ukrainians who found themselves under Russian occupation had to undergo before being allowed to leave for areas still under Ukrainian control.
So she stayed, hoping for a miracle. Instead, her life became a nightmare.
The town was hit by a major flood in 2023 after the nearby Nova Kakhovka Dam collapsed – most likely because of a Russian explosion. Several hundred people were reported to have died in the flooding and the town suffered major damage. The Russian-installed authorities were unable, or unwilling, to invest into repairs.
More destruction came in the subsequent years of heavy fighting in the area and the humanitarian situation has deteriorated in recent months. The town was reported by Ukrainian authorities to have ran out of food and other supplies in September, with no access to electricity, gas, medicine and other essentials. Reports from that time said people were surviving on grass and weeds.
The director of the Chernihiv Regional Hospital Andriy Zhydenko was waiting at the border with his staff to provide medical assistance to the evacuees. He told CNN the the effects of prolonged malnutrition will be a key concern, explaining that the evacuees will need to be fed carefully because they have been starving for so long that consuming too much food too quickly could be dangerous.
“There are people with injuries, stroke survivors, and those with limited mobility,” he said, adding that everyone at the hospital was overjoyed to be welcoming Ukrainian citizens home. “All of my staff wanted to come here. People have suffered greatly there. There is no humanity.”
Some 40% of Oleshky’s prewar population of around 24,000 managed to flee to Ukraine-controlled territory when it was still possible early in the fighting, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict observer. Thousands of others have escaped since then, but many remained, either unable or unwilling to leave.
Zhanna Ptakhova and her daughers Elizaveta and Daria Paliy were among those who made it out when it was still possible.
But Ptakhova’s husband, and Elizaveta’s and Daria’s father, stayed in Oleshky. He was going to taking care of their home until they could safely return.
But that has not happened. “The conditions were terrible. No electricity, no gas, no heat - but he’s a man with golden hands,” Ptakhova told CNN.
“He took a house that had been adapted for modern civilian life and turned it into a home suited for a primitive lifestyle; he built a stove, raised chickens to feed himself, planted a garden, and through his own hard work, he survived there,” she said.
The family was going to be reunited after three years apart.
Access routes to Oleshky have been heavily mined and littered with drone and vehicle debris and evacuation across the Dnipro River directly into Ukraine-controlled territory is not possible.
That made the journey out long and scary. Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets traveled to Oleshky to personally escort the evacuees into Ukraine-controlled territory, becoming the first high-profile Ukrainian official to openly travel to occupied areas under Russian control and Russia since the start of the war.
Once a two-day demining operation was completed on Thurday, people who wanted to leave gathered on Friday and traveled through the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to Anapa in Russia’s Krasnodar region.
The evacuees then flew from Anapa airport to Gomel, Belarus, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukrainian officials.
