People evacuated from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky crossed into Ukraine's Chernihiv region on Saturday after a humanitarian ceasefire allowed them to leave the devastated frontline city. Families reunited after years of separation, with emotional scenes as relatives embraced for the first time since the war began. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked US First Lady Melania Trump for brokering the local ceasefire that enabled the evacuation.
A convoy of 25 buses carried approximately 750 people out of Oleshky on Friday afternoon. The oldest evacuee was 94 years old. The youngest was one year old, according to Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman. Several hundred residents chose to remain in the city despite the lack of gas, electricity and running water.
Residents of Oleshky had been trapped without adequate food and water. Some survived by cooking garden weeds. The city lies 5km from Ukrainian military positions but evacuation required traveling through Russian-occupied territory to southern Russia, then flying to Belarus before entering Ukraine from the north.
The humanitarian ceasefire took effect across the Kherson region on Tuesday and allows the road out of the city to remain cleared of mines until the end of Sunday, November 1. Before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Oleshky was home to 24,000 people. Escape had been extremely difficult due to mined routes and drone attacks. One resident who fled three weeks earlier told the BBC he walked through 24km of minefields to reach safety.
Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova traveled to Oleshky together on Friday. Lubinets is the first Ukrainian official since the war began to visit Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Some in Ukraine criticized the sight of him standing beside a Russian representative, given the casualties and suffering caused by the Russian occupation.