Aid convoy enters Russian-occupied Oleshky during rare local truce

Relief vehicles arrived Friday in Oleshky, a city in southern Ukraine's Kherson region that is under Russian control, bringing food and medicine and giving residents a chance to leave, PBS NewsHour reported, citing officials. The outlet called the local ceasefire behind the operation the most significant halt in hostilities since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion four and a half years ago.

PBS NewsHour said the convoy was made up of 25 buses, ambulances and supplies. Roughly 2,000 people remain in the city, according to estimates from authorities and volunteers. Moscow and Kyiv released matching statements saying residents could depart for either country or remain and receive assistance.

By Friday the pause had lasted four days and was expected to continue until Sunday evening, according to PBS NewsHour. UN News reported that first lady Melania Trump brokered the arrangement, that the White House made it public on October 23, and that it is set to expire on the evening of November 1. Pope Leo XIV had also appealed to Russian and Ukrainian leaders on the city's behalf, PBS NewsHour noted.

Ukraine's ombudsman and chief negotiator, Dmytro Lubinets, said vehicles assembled in Armiansk, roughly 85 kilometers to the south, PBS NewsHour reported. Officials said crews cleared mines from the entry routes by late Thursday, and two people died in the process.

Authorities did not reveal the exit route. Ukrainian-controlled land sits just a few kilometers across the Dnipro River, but Ukrainian public television said people heading to Ukraine would make a journey of hundreds of kilometers, crossing in from Belarus to the north, PBS NewsHour reported.

Ksenia Arkhipova, a volunteer who once lived in Oleshky, told the Associated Press that Russian soldiers were inspecting vacant houses and sometimes moving in. "They are also pressuring local residents to evacuate to Russia, rather than to Ukraine," she said. According to Arkhipova, around a thousand people had contacted her saying they hoped to get out.

The United Nations took no part in the evacuation but was helping people after they crossed to the Ukrainian side, spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said, according to UN News. Tom Fletcher, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, stressed that departures must be voluntary and safe. "Let this pave the way for vital aid to get in, and more humanitarian access on both sides of the frontline," he wrote.

Hostilities went on in other areas. Russian defense officials claimed to have shot down over 1,000 Ukrainian drones in one night, and Ukraine's air force said Russia fired missiles and dozens of drones, PBS NewsHour reported. UN News said drone strikes hit two aid vehicles Thursday, including a bus in the Zaporizhzhia region where a woman died, and that media reports put the toll from a Russian attack on Dnipro's central rail station at 15.

Compiled by True News from reporting by PBS NewsHour and UN News. Each outlet's original story is linked below.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/624