A small city in southern Ukraine that has been cut off for months is due a brief pause in the 4 1/2-year war so humanitarian aid can get in and residents can get out. US first lady Melania Trump brokered the localized ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine around Oleshky, which she described as on the brink of disaster. Ukrainian, Russian and US negotiators reached the deal on Friday. Officials on all sides have confirmed it, though many details have not been released.
Speaking while voting with her husband on Saturday, Melania Trump said the ceasefire is expected to start on Oct. 27 and that she hopes everything goes as planned. She welcomed the pope’s support. Asked whether she had spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin, she and President Donald Trump said both. The president said he thinks she is doing better than the professionals right now. Asked if she will visit Ukraine, she replied that they will see.
Oleshky lies in Ukraine’s partially occupied Kherson region on the Dnipro River, which separates Ukrainian forces from the city’s Russian occupiers. Moscow’s forces captured it on the first day of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Its buildings were shelled and burned. In June 2023, floodwaters swamped the city after the Kakhovka Dam collapsed in an explosion that an Associated Press investigation found was likely caused by the Russian military. Hundreds of residents were killed.
Once home to about 24,000 people, the city has had scarce food and medical supplies for months. There is no electricity, heat or running water. Roads out of town are mined and lined with burned-out cars, and drones fly overhead. With another harsh winter approaching, those still there face death from hunger or disease. Ukraine has repeatedly appealed for a local ceasefire to organize evacuations. As the occupying power, Russia is obligated under international law to make sure civilians under its control have what they need to survive.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman and chief negotiator, Dmytro Lubinets, said the deal has three stages: a ceasefire, delivery of humanitarian aid, and evacuation of civilians who want to leave. Mines will be cleared on the routes into the city before any aid moves. Russia’s human rights ombudswoman, Yana Lantratova, who took part in the talks, said the sides first plan to establish what residents need and then deliver food, medicine, hygiene products and other essentials. She said anyone who wants to leave the combat zone will be guaranteed safe passage.
Lubinets told the AP that the ceasefire will begin Tuesday, two days before the humanitarian mission starts, and will last several days. Russia’s chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said Russian forces will cease fire on the Kherson axis from 4 a.m. Tuesday Moscow time, which is late Monday in the United States. He said Russian forces would also carry out engineering reconnaissance and ensure the humanitarian convoy can move safely into the city. Ukraine’s General Staff said the ceasefire will begin at 3 a.m. Tuesday Kyiv time, because Ukraine moves its clocks back an hour on Sunday while Russia does not. Lubinets said the pause would apply across the Kherson region and neighboring areas essential to the operation.
Lubinets gave no details on how the ceasefire or the aid mission would be monitored or carried out, citing the sensitivity of the negotiations, and he declined to say whether Melania Trump would travel to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said people who want to leave Oleshky will be able to, but he would not say whether they would be taken to Russian- or Ukrainian-held territory. Asked how long the evacuation would last, he said only that it would most likely take several days. Lubinets said the operation will be carried out gradually and is extremely challenging to implement.
The White House said the first lady began talks on Oleshky after hearing about the situation at an event during the UN General Assembly session in September. She and a representative then worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leadership. She had already been working with officials from both countries on a separate matter. Lubinets said that when she learned about Oleshky, the negotiation process began under her coordination, and that the sides spent several weeks discussing ideas and developing new approaches, mechanisms and tools to help civilians survive.
Helping children in conflict zones has become one of her signature issues during her husband’s second term. She hosted a UN Security Council meeting on the issue earlier this year and last year wrote to Putin about efforts to reunite families with children she described as displaced by the war. Her senior adviser, Marc Beckman, says she has helped reunite nearly three dozen children. Zelensky has lobbied world leaders for help reuniting children he says were taken by Russia after the invasion began in 2022. The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
The agreement comes as tensions between the Trump administration and Ukraine’s government have risen. Kyiv has faced restrictions on the satellite internet system it uses to knock down Russian attacks, and Trump and other top US officials have sent mixed messages about who was responsible for throttling the Starshield system. Trump also recently waived new Russia sanctions, reached an agreement with Russia to import diesel fuel and pushed Zelensky to make a deal to end the war. In renewed efforts to revive the peace process, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Norway this week for talks with Zelensky before meeting Putin in St. Petersburg.
Zelensky did not mention the Oleshky ceasefire during a remote appearance at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. He did note that American Patriot missile interceptors were still on hold, and he spoke of the importance of the United States to renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war, including a possible joint meeting with Trump and Putin.