The evacuation of the Russian-occupied frontline town of Oleshky was largely completed on Friday – without incident, with up to 2,000 people remaining in the town. That is reported by the Austrian broadcaster ORF, citing the Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets, both of whom were in the town on Friday, 30 October, to coordinate the operation. Beforehand, 25 buses with more than 750 seats had been provided, accompanied by nine ambulances for bedridden people.
“Those who did not register and decided at short notice were also given the opportunity to leave,” Lantratova said in a video message on Telegram. “Right now we are in Armyansk and dividing up the vehicle convoy,” Lantratova continued. Some of the people will travel on from the Russian-annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to unoccupied areas of Ukraine, while the rest headed for Russia.
According to tagesschau.de, the convoy had set off in Crimea in the morning. In the afternoon it left the town with the people who were ready to flee. According to ARD, a total of about 800 people could be brought to safety; the ARD correspondent Florian Kellermann reports that it is assumed that about half of the people want to be evacuated. The rest can, according to tagesschau.de, also stay in Russian-controlled territory if they wish.
Ceasefire until Sunday, limited to Oleshky
The operation was made possible by a local ceasefire that has held for three days and, according to tagesschau.de, applies until Sunday and is limited to Oleshky and the surrounding area. According to ORF, it was mediated by Pope Leo XIV and the First Lady of the USA, Melania Trump, and involved both Russia and Ukraine; according to tagesschau.de, the White House said the truce had been mediated to a decisive extent by Melania Trump. Neither Ukraine nor Russia had broken the ceasefire, said Lubinets, who accompanied the convoy. In recent days the time was used to clear the access roads to Oleshky of mines; according to Lantratova, two people were killed in the process.
For the people who want to stay in Oleshky, the first aid deliveries arrived – above all food such as flour, grain, sugar, cooking oil and tinned meat and fish, as well as hygiene items and fuel for emergency power generators. The central hospital received medicines such as antibiotics and insulin. The humanitarian situation in the town, which had around 24,000 inhabitants before the war, is precarious: there is a lack of food, medical care, electricity, gas and running water. According to tagesschau.de, the last food transport had reached the town in May; over the summer the people lived off what they grew in their gardens, but those supplies have now run out. “The people have already been starving,” said correspondent Kellermann.
A model for other towns – or a one-off?
Lubinets said he hoped the approach in Oleshky could become a model for other towns in the region that are in a similar situation; he had discussed this with Lantratova. On Friday both appealed to Melania Trump to continue working for people in need in wartime, and according to ORF they considered repetitions of such operations possible. However, Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previously stressed that the ceasefire in Oleshky was a one-off that must not be transferred to the general peace process.
Observers in the region also see dangers for Ukraine in the ceasefire: from Oleshky, Ukrainian drone pilots have for years been shelling the city of Kherson on the other side of the Dnipro. It is feared that Russia will use the opportunity to improve its military situation there. Elsewhere, according to tagesschau.de, Russia continued its attacks with undiminished severity during the locally limited ceasefire, most recently on Kyiv and the railway station in Dnipro. On Friday, Russia said it had targeted energy infrastructure in and around Kyiv as well as port facilities in the Odesa region, and reported more than 1,000 Ukrainian drones shot down over Russian regions. At the same time, the “Wall Street Journal” reported, citing insiders, that Ukraine had suspended attacks on Russian oil refineries under pressure from US President Donald Trump; however, Moscow reported further such attacks on Friday. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency, that three refineries and a gas-chemical complex had been attacked.
Editor’s note: The evacuation is a humanitarian success – whether it remains more than an exception politically depends on the question of whether Moscow extends the model to other places. Peskov has already ruled that out.
Earlier coverage: Oleshky: 25 buses ready for 750 people
