Evacuees from Russian-occupied Oleshky have been reunited with their families after crossing into Ukrainian-held territory on Saturday.
The major rescue operation began on Friday and was carried out under the most significant truce since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four and a half years ago.
Evacuees wrapped in Ukrainian flags stepped off buses at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border to be reunited with family members. Volunteers with hand-drawn welcome signs handed coffee to the weary people who had travelled by bus and plane through Russia and Belarus. Residents of nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and torches to greet the convoy.
Tetiana Leonidivna, 71, thanked the Ukrainian soldiers who helped her to flee. “We love them, we love them,” she said through tears. “We know that they are protecting us. And a deep bow to them, and a deep bow to their parents, for having such children. I am proud, I am simply proud.”
The ceasefire in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region began early on Tuesday and was expected to continue through Sunday evening. The White House said the first lady Melania Trump helped broker the localised deal, while Pope Leo XIV pressed Russia and Ukraine to allow aid deliveries and evacuations.
Relatives and volunteers with the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and World Central Kitchen welcomed the evacuees as they arrived at the border, ready to provide aid and food, including for their pets.
Holding a cigarette between shaking fingers, 48-year-old Ivan Yevhenovych described his last months in Oleshky. “It was very difficult. There were a lot of drones. It was hard to move around the streets,” he said. “Since spring, there hasn’t really been any staple food left. People had a little bit of their own reserves. We are thrifty people.”
He said landmines or drone strikes were killing residents every day.
An estimated 2,000 people remained in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of being evacuated to Ukrainian- or Russian-held territory, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.
“Many people stayed behind and didn’t want to leave,” Yevhenovych said. “Some for their houses, some for their animals.”
Ukrainian authorities, seeking to protect those who remained and safeguard future humanitarian missions, have not said how many residents evacuated Oleshky and have restricted details of their route. Melania Trump posted on social media on Friday that the humanitarian convoy could safely evacuate more than 750 people.
Liza Paliy, 19, waited at the border for her father, whom she last saw more than two and a half years earlier when she fled the occupied city with her mother and sister. “We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately, two years have already passed,” she said.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, hailed the humanitarian mission as a win.
“This is an extremely important moment. Behind us are difficult negotiations, agreements, preparations, and an enormous amount of work. But most importantly, the people who waited so long to be rescued are finally safe,” he said in an online post.
Lubinets said evacuees ranged in age from just over one year old to 94, and they brought pets, including dogs, cats, a parrot and a raccoon. He said he hoped the Oleshky truce could be replicated elsewhere, saying it “could form the basis of a new mechanism for responding to the most difficult humanitarian crises”.
Yana Lantratova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, said both sides have agreed to conduct regular humanitarian missions in and around Oleshky. Lubinets did not mention this development.
“The mission has concluded, but, unfortunately, living conditions in Oleshky remain extremely difficult,” she said. “We will make every effort to support those residents who have made the decision to stay.”
Some Oleshky evacuees who chose to move to Russian-occupied territory were taken to a temporary shelter in Simferopol, Lantratova said. The city is in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
“After everything they have endured and a long journey, it is essential for these people to rest, recover and feel cared for. However, support should not be limited to just a roof over their heads and a hot meal,” she said in a social media post.
A Ukrainian drone attack killed a 30-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man in Russia’s western Bryansk region, the local governor, Yegor Kovalchuk, said on Saturday. Five others were wounded, he said.
Local officials also reported Ukrainian drone attacks in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan. Russian media outlets said there was a fire in the region’s capital, Ufa, home to several oil refineries.
The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday its forces had shot down 433 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Moscow launched drone attacks on energy and railway infrastructure across Ukraine overnight, leaving 280,000 households in Dnipro and Kyiv regions without power.
