Russia just let hundreds of trapped civilians leave occupied Ukraine
1 hour ago · 31 October 2026Share
Ukrainian refugees crossing the Polish border File photo. Europäische Kommission - Audiovisueller Dienst, Bartosz Siedlik, CE - Service audiovisuel, EC - Audiovisual Service, FACTSTORY · CC BY 4.0
Hundreds of people just walked out of Russian-occupied Oleshky.
And some of them had been stuck there for two and a half years.
So how did they get out? A short ceasefire. Brokered with help from US First Lady Melania Trump.
Oleshky sits in Ukraine's Kherson region. Russian troops have held it since the first days of the war, back in February 2022.
The evacuees left over the past two days. The route was wild. Bus through Russian-occupied Crimea to Anapa in Russia. Flight to Gomel in Belarus. Then another bus into Ukraine's Chernihiv region. They crossed the border a few hours ago.
Before the war, around 24,000 people lived in Oleshky. By the time the ceasefire started five days ago, officials on both sides think only about 2,000 were left.
The truce began at 3am local time. It was due to run until this evening.
Melania Trump said on social media a day ago that the convoy had room to evacuate more than 750 people. But here's the thing. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has said how many actually left. And Ukraine won't even say where the crossing point is, because people are still in Oleshky, and more missions might follow.
David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian member of parliament, said four planes carrying evacuees landed in Gomel.
Not everyone who left Oleshky came to Ukraine, though. Yana Lantratova, Russia's human rights commissioner, ran the Russian side of the operation. She said some buses carried residents who chose Russia instead, and some of them ended up at a temporary shelter in Simferopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Dmytro Lubinets is Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman. He went to Oleshky himself to lead the Ukrainian side, and he personally escorted evacuees to the border. He says quote "an extremely important moment". He said the people who had waited so long to be rescued were safe now.
And at the border, families that had been apart for years found each other again.
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Katerynivka crossing point in the Russia-Ukraine border File photo. Sergey Bystro · CC BY 2.0
Liza Paliy is 19. She waited at the crossing for her father. They'd been apart for more than two and a half years.
Dmytro and Larisa are both 54. They found each other again after 1,711 days apart.
Ivan Yevhenovych is 48. He got out too, and he described what life in Oleshky had actually been like. Land mines and drone strikes killing residents every day. Food gone since spring.
Tetiana Leonidivna is 71. She thanked Ukrainian soldiers through tears. She says quote "We love them, we love them".
Volunteers from the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and World Central Kitchen met people at the border with food and aid.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, confirmed the crossing happened. He thanked Melania Trump for her mediation.
So who actually brokered this? That took about a week of diplomacy. Melania Trump was in it. So was Pope Leo XIV, who called Vladimir Putin eight days ago and pressed both sides to allow aid and evacuations.
And here's the part that got messy. A Daily Beast report this week said Melania Trump's team said it alone was behind the ceasefire. That drew accusations that the Pope's earlier role had been pushed aside. Al Jazeera has separately covered the dispute over who gets the credit.
Lantratova says the mission quote "has concluded". But she says life in Oleshky is still very hard, and Russia will support the people who stayed. She and Lubinets both said the two sides agreed to keep working on similar missions. Neither government has confirmed if or when another one happens.
There was other Ukraine news today too. Zelensky said Ukraine has approved buying 500 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors from the United States. That's a $2.1 billion deal, approved by the Trump administration. Russia's Defence Ministry said it shot down 433 Ukrainian drones overnight. Zelensky said Russian drone attacks knocked out power to 280,000 households in the Dnipro and Kyiv regions. And a Ukrainian drone attack killed a 30-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man in Russia's Bryansk region the same day.
So what happens to the roughly 2,000 people still in Oleshky? Nobody knows yet. Moscow hasn't said if it will allow more evacuations. Ukraine hasn't said whether it expects one.
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