US First Lady Melania Trump has secured a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine in the Russian-controlled city of Oleshky, which will begin on October 29, the White House said on Friday, according to Dawn, The Express Tribune and Geo News.
“Both nations agreed to temporarily stop all military action in Oleshky to allow for humanitarian aid to enter and to prepare a civilian evacuation through a designated safe passageway,” a White House statement said.
A city on the brink
Oleshky lies across the Dnipro River from Kherson in southern Ukraine and has been occupied by Russian forces since February 2022. Residents have reported a deepening food crisis. The White House said the remaining population is 1,700 to 2,000 people, mainly elderly residents, along with about 50 children, down from about 24,000 before the war. About 90 per cent of the city was flooded after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, it said.
“The situation in Oleshky is dire,” Melania Trump said in the statement. “Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster. Oleshky’s remaining population is comprised primarily of elderly residents who urgently need medical attention, medicine, food, and clean water.”
How the pause is meant to work
The statement said Melania Trump and her representative worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leaders to set the terms of the localised ceasefire. The main elements are:
- Visits to homes: non-military teams from both countries will visit residents in their homes and arrange transport for those who want to leave.
- Choice of destination: “I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine,” she said, adding that residents who wish to evacuate will receive coordinated support and transport to their preferred destination.
- Media access: an unnamed American media organisation will accompany the teams to document the process. Newsmax, a right-leaning outlet, said its cameras would get “exclusive access to document the effort”, The Express Tribune reported.
The first lady has also been active in trying to get Ukrainian children seized by Russia during the war returned to their families.
The wider diplomacy
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump pressures Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, which began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Read our reports on Putin’s meeting with US envoy Steve Witkoff and on Witkoff’s trip to Russia after the Oslo talks.
After that meeting, Trump said it was “the closest we’ve been” to ending the war. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Russia was “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral talks in mid-November, after the US midterm elections, with a focus on post-war security. He said Witkoff had briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting, but that “there wasn’t really much substance in them”. A summit of Putin, Trump and China’s Xi Jinping is also being prepared in Shenzhen for next month, Ushakov said, calling it “the first such meeting in history”, Dawn reported.
Attacks continue elsewhere
The fighting has not paused in other places. Russia and Ukraine traded major attacks overnight on Thursday, Dawn reported. Moscow’s mayor said 630 drones were launched towards the region, 163 of them approaching the capital, and Kyiv’s mayor said strikes wounded 15 people in the city, eight of whom needed hospital treatment.
Why it matters
A ceasefire limited to one town is small against the scale of the war, but it could bring food, medicine and a route out to a few thousand people who have been cut off. The ceasefire starts only on October 29, so the next days will show whether both armies keep to it and whether aid and evacuation teams reach residents in time. It will also be a test of whether localised pauses can open a way to the wider talks that Washington and Moscow say they want to resume next month.
This article draws on reporting by Dawn, The Express Tribune and Geo News.
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