• Analysis
Oleshky ceasefire holds for third day as aid mission prepares to enter town
A humanitarian aid mission was set to enter the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, a Ukrainian official said Thursday, as a localised ceasefire brokered by US first lady Melania Trump held for a third day, with about 2,000 residents cut off from supplies.
The Oleshky ceasefire held for a third day on Thursday, and a humanitarian aid mission was set to enter the Russian-occupied town, according to Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets. About 2,000 residents of the town have been cut off from essential supplies, amid reports that many are starving.
Aid convoy and demining under way
Moscow and Kyiv have observed the localised ceasefire in and around Oleshky since Tuesday, while military units work to clear landmines from the area. The truce is planned to last six days and has brought stillness to nearby Kherson, which Ukraine holds.
Lubinets said Thursday that the agreements were being respected on both sides and that aid deliveries were due to begin the following day.
"The parties are fully adhering to the agreements, and no violations of the ceasefire have been reported"
On the Russian side, ombudsman Yana Lantratova confirmed the truce was holding and said Russian engineers are demining the town's roads to prepare a route for the convoy.
"This allows military personnel to continue clearing roads of mines and to prepare a safe passage for the humanitarian convoy."
Lantratova said she and her team were travelling to Oleshky for the delivery, which she described as five months in the making. Russian and Ukrainian representatives met in the Belarusian city of Homel on Thursday to fly together to the Kherson region, Belarus state media reported. Both sides thanked Melania Trump for her role, as the White House described it, in brokering the temporary ceasefire so food and medical supplies can reach the roughly 2,000 people trapped in Oleshky; Pope Leo XIV also pressed for a truce.
Residents cut off and evacuation plans
Officials say local residents will be able to evacuate into either Russia or Ukraine, though the mechanics of how that would work remain unclear.
- •Ksenia Arkhipova, a volunteer from Oleshky, said roughly 1,000 residents have told her they want to leave the city.
- •Arkhipova said the Ukrainian delegation's presence matters because many residents fear Russian authorities would identify individuals with pro-Ukrainian views or ties to Ukraine's military.
Quiet in nearby Kherson
The pause has changed daily life in Kherson. Nataliia Myronenko, 42, who runs a coffee kiosk in the city, said customers have returned while the quiet lasts.
"Now, during the quiet, we have people at lunchtime and in the evening, which we didn't have under the attacks."
She called the pause a relief, while noting the danger that remains on the ground.
"It's a breath of freedom, when you don't look at the sky. You keep looking at your feet because of the mines"
Strikes elsewhere as truce holds
The localised truce did not stop attacks elsewhere in Ukraine on the same day:
- •A jet-powered Russian drone hit two passenger trains at a station in Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 14 more, among them a 40-year-old man whose legs were amputated.
- •A Russian cruise missile killed two 15-year-old girls in Chernihiv, and three civilians died when a Russian drone struck an apartment block in Kremenchuk.
- •Authorities said 56 people in all were hurt across the day's strikes, among them 10 children.
- •Russia's Defence Ministry reported that air defences destroyed 1,214 Ukrainian drones overnight, which it called one of the biggest such barrages Kyiv has launched; Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said roughly half of them were flying toward the Russian capital.
The ceasefire around Oleshky is planned to last six days, and aid deliveries were due to begin the day after Lubinets's Thursday statement.
